


To You, From This World to the Next

by Space_Kitten_from_Planet_Pheromone



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 48,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Space_Kitten_from_Planet_Pheromone/pseuds/Space_Kitten_from_Planet_Pheromone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A blasé god of death roamed the earth for centuries, seeking for something that would alleviate his constant boredom. It was by chance that he laid his eyes upon him—that being that will turn his mundane life upside-down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As this fic was mainly posted on FFN, I decided to try out and posting it here on AO3, too. Just cause.

Through his steel mask, his eyes would always roam the earth, searching for something— _anything_ —that he would deem worthwhile interesting from his dead-banal life. 

Sitting on his throne made of skulls and bones from the dead and the fallen, the god of the underworld would watch the earth through a seam he had stolen from the Fates. An easily bored being that he was, he would always search from one place to another, finding something that would catch his eye even for a fleeting moment—all of it done just from sitting in his throne all day.

The creaking of the wide, wall-like gates made his eyes flicker just for a second, and upon seeing who it was that entered his throne room, he shifted his attention back to what he was looking at—an empty flower field.

“Another dozen of dead souls are here, King.”

“Ah, yes. I’ve heard of it from the Fates earlier,” he drawled lazily, looking at his black talons with much boredom. “Anything else?” The masked god’s eyes bore into the black-cloaked woman standing in front of him, and he snorted when she shook her head apologetically.

He rested his cheek on his knuckles and looked away from her completely, and he let out a long sigh as he frowned. “Return to your post, then. Guard the entrance, as you and they always have.”

The cloaked woman bowed, and she apologized, “I’m sorry we haven’t brought in anything interesting to you lately, Your Highne—”

She snapped her mouth shut after hearing him click his tongue, and she took a quick peek from where she was bowing.

As always, she would only see just a glimpse of his ashen jaw, and nothing more.

“There is nothing that interests me at the moment. That is that. Return to your post.” He glanced at her, and huffed as she bowed once more and hurriedly left the room.

Once alone, he watched the flower fields on earth, yawning at every being shown in the seam. He saw them everyday. Every flora and fauna, he had already seen them with a bored stance.

“There is nothing new on earth today.”

* * *

The cloaked woman returned to her post to the entrance gates to hell just as she was ordered to, sighing as she stood beside one of her comrades.

“By that face, I guess the king dismissed you again?”

The cloaked woman bit her lip and looked at her companion, “I just don’t understand it. He always seems so bored these days. Ever since we got here, all he does is just sit in his throne all day and wait for some miracle to happen on earth.”

Her companion, a black-cloaked man with sharp, masculine features, laughed at her. “You mean ever since he stole that thing from the Fates, all he does is sit around and makes us do all the work. I, for one, never complain.”

She bristled at his words, and glared at him, “I never complain! I will never complain about how he rules this place! This place is our home and we owe him our lives! It’s just—he doesn’t look alive anymore.”

Another cloaked man came up behind her, smirking as he crossed his arms. With a hiss of his snake-like tongue, he quipped, “How would you even know if he looks alive? No one in the underworld has ever seen his face.”

“Except for the ferryman, or was it a ferrywoman?”

The cloaked woman clicked her tongue, a habit she had gotten from the king. She patted her bare feet on the stone ground as yet another cloaked man appeared, “Don’t speak about her that way. You know how the King treats her as his only confidante. It would bring you harm if he hears of this.”

And the four guardsmen bickered at who the king’s confidant should be, unaware of the fact that a looming presence hovered behind them.

“So I see you have lots of free time talking about me and the ferrywoman while you slack off in your jobs.”

The four of them squeaked, and slowly turned their heads at the god standing right behind him.

Despite his recognizable small stature, he was much feared by everyone—especially by his guards.

“M-my king!” stuttered the man with the snake-like tongue. “W-we didn’t s-see you there—sss!”

Black wisps of smoke hung all around the ground that the god walked on, leaving a trail of death and darkness behind him.

Two large horns resembling a goat’s curled behind his head, and his gray iron mask left much room to speculate what he actually looked like; it concealed almost all of his face, leaving only a peek of his pale lips and chin when he spoke.

A pitch black cape draped his foreboding form, its edges kissing the ground as he walked by. His outer garments, if they could be called as such, were black tendrils of smoke that seemed to emit a low hiss whenever he moved. A peek of his ashen skin could be seen when he raised his arm, and the cloaked woman would shyly look away.

“I’m going to see that lecherous brother of mine today. Be sure to guard the gates when I’m gone.”

And the four of them saluted energetically, letting out a sharp, “Yes!” as the god walked by.

When they turned around to bid him a good day on his journey, he was already gone.

* * *

Death followed his every walking step. The smoke that clung to him emitted bereavement and despair, something that the underworld god was known for.

He walked on the Elysium fields today, something that rarely occurred to him, and he made no effort to disguise himself among the dead.

The god of death rarely made an appearance to the fields, and when he did, the beings there would cower and hide upon seeing his very self.

The flowers that grew there withered and died upon being stepped on by him, and when he made it to the river Styx, he heaved a sigh and glanced at what he just did.

As he expected, a woman decked in a red cloak greeted him with a wave of her chained scythe rather happily, and it made the god oddly grunt in frustration.

“Where to, today, o King of Discontentedness?”

The god huffed, and laid his hand on his hip in an arrogant manner, “To that god of freak-makers.”

At this, the woman squealed, something that the god was already used to. “Ooh! To the god of gods himself, eh? Why, if I may ask?” And she leaned on her scythe, widely grinning as she toyed with him, and she snickered when he twitched his hand.

“I need to speak to him about something.”

“About?”

“Why the world out there is so overly boring these days. I haven’t had a new thing to play with since those freaks you sent me eons ago.”

She huffed, and readjusted her slipping trifocals, “Oh, _please_. You threw them back to me when you said they almost ripped off your mask—”

“That’s because no one is allowed to look at me. Because if they do—”

“They will surely die, I know.”

The ferrywoman rolled her eyes, and she grew silent when he tapped his foot on the wood that was now decaying with his every tap. Upon seeing that he would be stubborn as he always had, she decided to let him board her ferry.

She observed him as he summoned a seat out of thin air, and he sat upon it, reveling in the black wisps of smoke that surround his talons. “I think you need to loosen up a bit. You’re becoming as rusty as the anchors on my ship! And please don’t make the wood rot this time, I just repaired that.”

“Well, too bad. The wood is creaking beneath my feet already.”

“Aah! At least levitate! _Levitate!_ ”

“Too bad, woman. My feet pierced through the wood already.”

She gasped and wailed, tearing up her auburn hair as she pointed her scythe at him, “I just repaired that! Me and Erwin just repaired that!”

“What does that bloodthirsty lump of muscle have anything to do with a ferry from the underworld?”

At this, the ferrywoman bit her lips and looked away from his piercing gaze, humming as she explained herself. “He kind of delivered the dead from the wars, you see. Besides, he pines to speak with you from time to time.”

The god laughed dryly, and regarded the dead souls grasping at the sides of the ship with much apathy as his masked form would allow. “I don’t plan to speak or deal with anything that involves any other stuck-up gods. They left me here to rot—and I turned this forsaken place into my own kingdom. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

The ferrywoman guffawed, and she looked at him with much mirth, “You may not want anything to do with him, but,” she paused, and checked to see if he was interested in what she had to say. Seeing as he was tapping his talon on his knee in impatience, she continued. “Ah, perhaps someone might interest you? One of the beings created by the freak-maker himself?”

The talon tapping on his knee stopped, and from her point of view, she could almost see what he might look like right now—raising a thin, inquisitive eyebrow at her with that ever present frown.

She held in her laugh of victory as he asked.

“A being of interest? Who ever might that be?”

* * *

Trudging towards the bright walls of white clouds only made the underworld god’s mood even grumpier than before.

The ferrywoman never told him who this “being of interest” was, no matter how much he questioned her—and it riled him up.

“Ah! Little Death! To what reason may I owe your visit?”

Yet the voice of one eccentric and randy god riled him up ten times worse than before.

The sight of seeing the god of gods howling with crude laughter as five nymphs draped their barely-dressed entities made the underworld god’s skin crawl in distaste.

“Good day to you, too, _Pixis_. I see you’re as busy as ever over there,” he drawled with disgust, and he quickly refused to be serviced by a nymph who came up to him the moment he entered Pixis’s room.

“Ah, yes! I’m a very busy god, haha!” and he whispered something to one of the nymphs beside him, and the playful sprite giggled as she gave him more ambrosia that she produced between her lips.

Pixis beckoned him with a lazy finger, all the while, he never took his lips away from the nymph.

The god grimaced beneath his mask, and he begrudgingly took a proffered seat from one of the nymphs so shamelessly offering him services.

The nymph only silenced herself when a tendril of black smoke coiled around her neck.

“Now, now, Little Death! That’s not a way to treat a beauty!”

“Shut up, old man,” and he immediately let the nymph go when he saw her turn gray from the smoke, “I only came here to see if you have any more of those freaks you’re so fond of creating. Make me something that won’t rip my mask off.”

“Why, you dare call my wonderful creations as freaks?” The surprise in his voice mocked the god of death, and the irate god almost spat. “Hah,” and Pixis laughed, “I’ll let you know, I created much of the gods and goddesses that roam the earth—”

“With the help of anyone too stupid and willing to sleep with you and your wrinkly excuse for a glory hole for five nasty minutes, whether they’re mortal or not.”

Pixis huffed, yet showed no signs of displeasure on hearing the god’s foul words, “I see you still have a colorful mouth despite you living in a drab of a world.”

“You forced me there, geezer. Don’t forget it.”

“Ah, yes. I almost forgot,” and he toyed with his mustache idly, his waned eyes looking far behind the irritable god of death. “How about the beings I sent Hange before? Weren’t you playing with them for a matter of time?”

A flurry of black flames emerged from the death god’s body, and he snarled at Pixis’s dazed face, “ _You_ did the foolhardy job of making them almost yank my mask off. You know I can’t show myself to anyone. Now I demand you to make one that will meet my interests or I swear I will murder all of your wenches and feed them to the Cerberus.”

Pixis leaned back on his throne, a thoroughly please expression etched upon his face, and with a snap of his finger, the nymphs that were surrounding him flitted and disappeared immediately, leaving only him and the irate god in the vastness of the room.

“Now, now, Little Death. One as small as you shouldn’t be—”

A billow of smoke and flames that zoomed just by his temple immediately cut off his words.

The god of the underworld still sat upon the seat made of white clouds, only, now, their pristine whiteness was slowly turning into pitch black the moment his skin made contact with it.

“I told you not to call me that, you lecher.”

Pixis regarded the seething god with apathy, and he sighed with a resigned wave of his hand as he smoothed down his purple toga out of habit. “Fine, fine. What would you like, then? A nymph just like the Nereids? Someone who looks like the sole female of the Fates? Someone who looks like Pit—”

“I don’t want any of them. No one with the likes of them, if you will. So drab and downright boring and lecherous as you will never fit my tastes.”

Pixis smirked at his boldness, “But from what I recall, you stole something that belongs to the Fates. Maybe you like the sole female?”

“They have plenty of seams,” he reasoned with a shrug, “the one who spins the thread of life knows it, and makes no comment of my little purchase. And no, I don’t like her.”

“Ah, but she looks at you with such coldness. I’m sure that she has feelings for you hidden beneath that cold exterior of hers.”

“She’s always like that. Not like I care. Besides, one of them already likes her quite possessively—though, even if she has no suitors, I wouldn’t approach her.”

Pixis laughed, “Ah, yes. That black-haired fellow that seemed to trail her wherever she goes.” He pursed his lips in thought, looking at the simmering god every now and then, “But how about one of your guards? The fiery-haired female seemed to grow fond of you since she came to the underworld.”

“She is not to be touched. Besides, she is too afraid to look at me in the eye—fearing death, I suppose. It’s natural. Though I cannot be interested in someone who won’t even look at me in the eye.”

Pixis assessed his words, and it took him moments before he finally responded with a knowing hum, “I see. Should I suggest someone who doesn’t know of your reputation to steal the life of anything that you pass by?”

* * *

His bare feet touched the flower fields, and the flora that surrounded him immediately withered and died within seconds.

The god of death frowned, and he kept on walking, ignoring the trail of dead flowers he left behind him. He came upon a tree that bloomed white flowers. It was a tree that he couldn’t name, and he closed his eyes and rested upon it, sighing upon hearing the wood creak and crumble behind him.

A leaf fell on his face, and he opened his eyes, sighing once more as he looked at the tree.

All of its leaves and buds and flowers withered away, leaving him with nothing but a dead tree to sleep on.

He groaned, and closed his eyes once more, letting the small luxury of sleep to pass him by.

* * *

He awoke to the sound of laughter, and the god cracked his eyes open, ready to curse and kill the person who dared to disturb his dreamless nap.

He promptly sat up and jerked his head to his left, glaring at the person so carelessly sitting and laughing beside him.

“What do you want, Nymph?”

The would-be nymph huffed and crossed his arms, his nose stuck in the air as though offended by his words. “I’ll have you know I’m a hunter around here,” and he regarded the god with a bright smile, “though this is the first time I’ve seen someone as weird as you.”

The death god hummed, and his pointed ears—which weren’t concealed by his mask—twitched just the slightest, an indication that he was slightly roused by the foolish young hunter.

“‘Someone as weird’ as me? Child, do you know who you are talking to right now?”

And the ‘child’ quipped a cheerful, “No. You see, I just told you that this is the first time I’ve seen such a being as you. Why do you have that mask, if I may ask?”

The god of death scoffed, and should the curious hunter look closely, he would see the smallest glimpse of a smile.

Not that the god would show it to him, that is.

“This,” he pointed at his mask, “protects me, and other beings from harm. Call it a prevention from a disease, if you will.”

His voice sounded deep enough for the young lad, and he couldn’t help but lean closer to him.

The death god slowly leaned away from him, “What?”

The young lad, clad in a loose, sea-green toga and brown leather sandals, looked at the strange creature—as he dubbed in his mind—curiously, his wide, turquoise eyes observing the way the god’s mask was built.

A tanned hand reached out to the iron mask, and the god himself swatted that hand away.

The young hunter pouted and cradled his hand, as though injured, “Hey, what gives?”

The god recoiled at the sudden yell, and he looked away, guilty for a reason he couldn’t fathom. “Don’t touch me,” he mumbled inaudibly.

“And why the hell not?” There it was again, that endearing pout—that pout that seemed to unsettle the god of death himself.

The unusual crack in the death god’s voice as he turned away from him was apparent to the young hunter, and his cape and black wisps of smoke cradled his small form, making himself seem even smaller than he already was.

“Because I am filthy,” he whispered, “and I wouldn’t want to harm you with my own grime.”

The young hunter blinked and leaned back, yet keeping a close eye on the huddled god crouching in front of him.

“I don’t think you’re filthy, strange one.”

The bowed head of the masked god craned his neck, and did all he could to deter the boy. “I am filthy, child. Don’t get close to me or you will die.”

“I am not a child,” he muttered calmly, “I have a name, you know. Besides, I know I won’t die, because the god of death will not harm me.”

The god huffed, and laid his eyes upon the brave young hunter, “Are you sure the god of death himself will not harm you in any way?”

“Of course I am sure! See?”

And the young hunter produced a flower wreath with a flick of his hand and placed it atop of the masked god’s head.

And the wreath didn’t wither—something that made the god blink in confusion.

“I told you I won’t die, heh.”

The god’s shoulders squared, and through his mask, he could see the brave—and rather idiotic—hunter inch closer to him, “…Who are you?”

The young hunter smiled coyly at him, and tilted his head.

“I’m Eren, and I’m the hunter here in the woods, and you are…?” 

The god of death stared at him with wide eyes through his mask, and with a hitch of breath, he let out a low whisper that fell on deaf ears.

“I didn’t hear that, sorry.”

The god gritted his teeth, and he hissed, “I’m Levi, god of the underworld and of the dead.”

Eren hummed, and opened his mouth and said words of awe to him, “I’ve never seen a real god before. If I did, I never would have noticed them.” From Eren’s eyes, he could tell that the god was smiling—smirking, he thought—at him, and it somehow made him bolder. He crawled on top of the now fussy god, giggling at how the black smoke that was supposed to deter the hunter only seemed to tickle his skin, and it did just that, and nothing more. Spindly limbs pressed flush against the cold skin of the god, and Eren graced him with a smirk of his own. “Scared yet, god of Death?”

Levi’s skin flickered in life at the way he said his words. Such confidence. Such arrogance.

The wisps of smoke swirled playfully around Eren, testing to see if the hunter would recoil upon having the feelers of death literally touch his skin. Oddly enough, the strange hunter only laughed spiritedly, even going as far as to toy with the vines of smoke and wrap some of them around his fingers.

The hunter’s fingers didn’t become singed nor melted into bones. His flesh remained whole and intact.

Something that never happened before.

“These will-o’-the-wisps of yours are quite interesting. Do you do this often?”

As though an answer to his question, another thin tendril of smoke wrapped itself around Eren’s neck, and it tickled his cheek, and Eren laughed.

“I can control them at will, so yes, I do that often. Only when I feel threatened do I make them appear larger and scarier, I suppose.”

The hunter laughed, and showed him his pearly teeth, “You don’t scare me, King Levi. Lord Levi… whatever. I’m telling you, there is nothing on earth that would scare me. So—”

He crept closely to the god’s masked face, and it surprised Levi at best.

“ _Show me your face. Now._ ”

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

This foolish being who proclaimed himself as fearless was toying with him, that much he knew.

Yet, here he was, the feared god of the underworld, walking down the meadows with a mere mortal hunter who looked completely defenseless save for his strange ability to nullify the heart-wrenching effects his presence should have brought.

“Say, child,” he started, and he blinked when said child snorted and openly glared at him.

No one in the underworld would even dare to glance his way, yet here was a foolish mortal being, staring down at him with the most menacing stare he had ever seen.

It piqued the god’s fascination.

“I told you I am not a child. I’m already 19 summers old,” he growled, and to prove his point, he flicked a finger at the god’s face, “and I’m taller than you.”

Eren heard the god huff proudly, and from the corner of his eye, he could tell he was somehow trying to stifle a smile.

“I’m more powerful than you.”

“Yet your deadly fingers cannot touch me, or anything that I touch—into a deathly state. Besides, I can’t call you powerful if you refuse to show your face to me.”

A sound that greatly resembled a dry laugh passed through the masked god’s lips, and Eren couldn’t help but smile.

“You sure are persistent about that. Why do you want to see my face that badly?”

Turquoise eyes glanced at the black-clad god, and noticed that some of the wisps of black smoke were now surrounding his own person as they walked on the fields. Eren looked behind him to assess the damage that Levi caused, and he breathed a sigh of relief when all flowers remained blooming from where the god stepped on.

He didn’t know what he would do if _she_ found out that the sole flowering tree in the fields almost died because of the god of death decided to drop by in the human world.

“I just want to see the face of the person I am talking to, is that bad?”

A snide remark crawled to the tip of Levi’s tongue, but upon seeing the genuine sincerity in the mortal’s eyes, he paused in thought. “Letting you hear my voice is enough, is it not? Letting you see my exterior form is enough, is it not?” His approach was evasive, yes, but he tried all that he could to slyly push the hunter away. The fool didn’t know what he was capable of—and the mortal might die if he stayed with him long enough, but—

“Hearing your voice is nice, too. Reminds me of a confection I ate a while back—cacao, I believe. Deep and bitter yet enticing to the palate. But really, I want to see your face. It intrigues me,” and he jumped in front of the god and swayed playfully as he grinned, “and I want to see your face so I could imagine what you’ll look like with that wreath on your head.”

Stunned, Levi stopped in his tracks, and he reached out to the circlet of flowers that still sat atop of his head. He thought that the flowers died already. He yanked it at eye level, mindful of the petals that flew from his grasp, and looked at it in confusion. None of the leaves nor the stems nor the blossoms withered and died upon his touch.

He stared at the petals that stayed stuck on his talons, and little did he know that Eren studied him carefully with hardened turquoise eyes, as though searching for an emotion present in his masked features.

The masked god looked up, and by his statuesque form, Eren assumed the immortal was confused. Judging from his hitching breath and the peek of slackened jaw from beneath his mask, Eren took it as an initiative to touch the tips of the god’s talons.

Levi, as the hunter expected, jolted and recoiled, and the latter merely offered him a friendly smile, and that raised hand remained, waiting for another reaction from the god.

“Don’t,” he snarled, “you’ll die.” Yet Eren paid no heed to his words, and he moved to hold the god’s talons in his hand.

The immortal acted on instinct, and the black tendrils of smoke surrounding him coiled around the hunter’s neck as tight as he could, to prevent him from touching his person altogether.

Yet, Eren stood still, smiling warmly at him even as black smoke engulfed and entwined around his neck—

“Don’t worry, god of death. I won’t die from your touch.”

—and Levi stopped.

The swirls of smoke slackened their hold on the mortal, and it moved away from him. Eren, though, kept one curl of the black mist wrapped around his finger with a warm smile, and he gently kissed it with his lips—

—and Levi became wholly enamored of the enigmatic mortal.

In that moment, he knew, and he believed, that he must have him at all costs.

They talked about anything of everything, with Levi opening up subject by subject regarding the issue of immortality, and Eren lapped up everything that the god had told him with those wide eyes of his, and he craved to know more, following the god closely wherever he stepped, like a loyal canine to his master.

And it came the time when the sun was slowly setting in the horizon, and Eren was saddened by the fact that he had to leave the immortal to his own. Breathing in the fresh air of the meadow, he forced a wide smile when he turned to the immortal with open arms.

“You will come here tomorrow, too, yes? Tell me you will.”

Levi stood still in front of the young hunter, unmoving at his words. The god had made plans beforehand that he would never return again to the world above—a liaison between a mortal and an immortal was commonly heard of between the gods themselves, yet Levi himself was not prepared to dive into such a complicated matter—

“I… Yes, I will.”

—so why did he agree?

* * *

Days passed by, and the death god’s visits to the human realm became more frequent, and it was noticed by his ever faithful guards and his only confidant.

The flower crown that the young hunter had placed on his head days before had withered away as soon as he went away from him, and Levi deduced that whenever Eren was with him, the effects of death around him were nullified, and when the hunter was away, the god’s power to unintentionally destroy everything his skin would touch inevitably returned.

The wreath of beautiful woven flowers were now nothing but dead stems and brittle and brown foliage in his gentle grasp, yet the god kept it close with him whenever he roamed the underworld.

“Did you finally see something interesting in the world above, my King?” one of his guards, Eld, asked one day. The cloaked man was tasked of keeping the stray souls away from the throne room of the god today, and he saw to it that his orders were properly obeyed. He could never anger the god of the underworld, after all.

The masked god hummed in his throne, his attention focused on the seam that showed the state of the earth for today—in particular, he was looking at the field of flowers, as though looking for something, or—

“My King?” Eld asked once more, coming closer to the god who was clearly deep in thought.

Levi jolted at the sound of his title, and he turned to Eld, forcing to keep a level tone when he mumbled, “What?”

The cloaked man suddenly froze at the clipped voice, and he gulped. “My King,” he started lowly, “did you, perhaps, finally found something of interest on earth?” And when the masked god tapped his talon on the bony armrests of his throne twice, Eld almost squeaked uncharacteristically, “B-because! M-my King has been spending more time on earth lately and—”

“And?”

Eld shivered at the voice, and his masculine features turned pale when a smoke-tipped talon was pointed at him.

“Your point is? Eld?”

Eld squeaked and bowed profusely, his whole frame a wreck of nerves, “I-it’s just my King hasn’t visited the souls lately for—”

“That’s the Judges’ job, not mine. Though Kitts is doing pretty stupid job for being a Judge,” and Levi scratched his jaw, already bored at the turn of the conversation. “Anything else?”

Eld gasped and stood straight and saluted him, “Nothing else, my King!” And he fidgeted under the god’s scrutiny despite not really seeing his face.

“There is something more you want to say,” Levi drawled, tapping his talons on his knee as he did so.

Eld clenched his fists and bit his lip, clearly trying to find the words to say, and he looked at Levi in the eye—something that he never dared to do.

The god merely let out a single rope of black flames from his left hand.

“Th-the Fates saw you with a mortal!”

Eld clenched his eyes shut, and remained prostrated to the stoned ground, ready to die the moment he spouted his words.

Moments passed, and he heard no sound nor shuffle of the wisps of smoke that constantly surround the god.

Eld held in his breath and looked up, and saw that the masked god was back to watching the seam in front of him. He didn’t know if that was a good or a bad sign.

Sensing the unspoken question, Levi sighed and rested his chin on his knuckles, resting his elbow on the bony armrests as he did so. “I knew it would come to that. They know everything about the past, present, and future, after all.”

“B-but King! A mortal! A _mortal!_ He is unfit to be with the king of the underworld—”

A pillar of black flames roared behind Eld, and he merely clenched his teeth as bit of the fires licked his cloak.

“ _Silence._ ”

And the guard did as he was told.

“I know he is a mortal from the moment I spoke to him. And I enjoy his company far more than this dull excuse for a netherworld. I desire his ways of thinking—a breath of fresh air, he is. Now, leave me be before I replace you with Oluo.”

The guard bit his lip, and he apologized and left.

All the while, Levi’s attention was caught back to watching a certain mortal hunting in the fields.

And a smile—so unlike him—graced his seemingly stoic and masked façade.

* * *

Three wild boars were feasted upon by the people in the market, and Eren, being the proud hunter that he was, had received a great amount of money from the people buying meat—and Eren was quick to take it, and he used it for buying steel-tipped arrows and new knives and nets for hunting.

Today, he was hunting for a deer—as requested by one of his neighbors. He would use the money to further refine his hunting gear, so he would be a great hunter—

“And I will be noticed by the hunting goddess herself,” he said excitedly to a silently observing Levi, who stood behind him with crossed arms. His traps were laid in perfect condition on the ground, waiting for the prey to take the bait. Hiding behind the bushes, he grinned at the immortal, “Because there is a competition next week on who will be the greatest hunter of the land—and whoever wins will be granted a wish by the goddess, Mikasa.” He turned to Levi, who still had his mask on despite begging him numerous times to take it off, “I want to have wings, you see!”

Intrigued, the god’s ears twitched on instinct, and he tilted his head. Swirls of black smoke wove around Eren’s smiling form softly, “And why would you want that? Do you desire to be a god?”

Eren laughed and shook his head, giggling when a tendril of smoke touched his cheek. “I want to have wings so I could travel the world. I want to have the same set of swift wings that Sasha the messenger has.”

The god hummed, impressed by the mortal’s wish, “Are you sure that is the only thing that you want? Most mortals like you would wish for flowing riches and power and undying beauty… though I could say you don’t really need the last one anymore since—”

Eren huffed his chest and crossed his arms like a petulant child, and Levi didn’t know if the mortal had heard his last words. “Money can be taken away with just a snap of a finger—”

“But so can the wings you’re so keen on getting. It could be taken away just like that.”

Eren groaned and glared at him, and Levi thought that even with an angry face, the hunter still looked breathtaking.

“But I _will_ try to escape if someone were to threaten me that way. I won’t have to be chained to these lands anymore, and I will soar above the earth to search for things that will make me free.”

Levi’s eyes sparkled unbeknownst to the hunter, and a peek of his tongue could be seen, apparently trying to come up with a proper retort. And upon seeing the great determination in Eren’s eyes, his pale lips hardened into a thin line, and his mind tried to juggle ways to make him his.

To drag him into the underworld to be his own.

Just as he was about to speak, the tell-tale shuffle of leaves were heard, and Eren’s eyes shifted back to the nearby trees, his whole body stiff as he watched the deer approaching the net concealed by dead leaves.

The hunter counted in his head, biting his lip in excitement as the sound of swinging ropes and cries of the animal were heard.

Eren shouted in victory, and he jumped out of the bushes to inspect his work. Levi, on the other hand, calmly walked by, ignoring the leaves that decayed as soon as the hunter left his side.

“Did you see that, Levi? I can be the greatest hunter of the land!” And the joy was evident in those sea-green eyes as he took out ropes from his toga and hogtied the deer through the net, apologizing to it in the process.

“Aren’t you supposed to kill that thing?” Levi asked, careful not to get too close to the whining animal lest it died because of his mere presence.

Eren blinked at him, and laughed as he waved his hand, “Oh, no I wouldn’t do that! That’s for the people down in the market to decide, not me. I only bring them in alive. I don’t do the killing.”

“So you’ve never killed an animal in your whole life as a hunter?” It sounded disbelieving to the god, as he knew that hunters would always kill their prey.

Eren hummed and looked thoughtful for a moment, pursing his lips before replying slowly, “I’ve killed hares and pheasants before for dinner, but I never really kill large wild animals. It’s not like I do this for fun—that’s just cruel.”

Levi nodded solemnly, contemplating on what he should say, and his words came out low and unhurried. “So you don’t really do the hunt and kill method?”

He shook his head, smiling almost sadly. “No,” he mumbled, his lips scrunched up in musings, and when the deer tried to break free once more, he used another rope to tie it up. “I just can’t stand it, seeing them get killed—heh. I am quite sure I look like a hypocrite to you now, huh. Saying such things when I am the one sending them to the slaughter.”

“I never thought of you like that,” the god replied just as quickly. “It never occurred to me that you are like that. Brash and impulsive, yes. Foolish, even. But a hypocrite, no.”

Eren let out a forced laugh and scratched his nape sheepishly, trying to fight off the dust of pink that was surely staining his tanned cheeks. “I just need this as a means to get by and… oh! Do you want to go to the market with me? I can show you around and—”

“I can’t deal with any more mortals. I’m already busy enough with you as it is,” Levi quipped, and Eren thought it was his way of saying that the god was trying to avoid spreading unnecessary deaths. Yet the hunter shook the thought away.

“But I really want to show it to you…” It was a soft-spoken plea, quite unlike the hasty words that Eren just said earlier, and Levi himself didn’t know what came over him when he carefully replied a mumbled affirmative upon seeing the youth’s dejected face.

“Ah, you will accompany me? That’s great!”

Such naïve words coming from the fiery hunter, and when he took the taloned hand in his, Eren laughed as he dragged the deer with his other hand with all his might.

Levi silently followed the teenager with no resistance at all, silently looking forward to what he would see.

Mingling with humans had never been his cup of tea, after all.

* * *

Eren sold the deer for a hefty price in the market, and as he was being paid by a kind woman, she noticed a black cat cradled upon his bosom.

“Oh, what a nice little feline you have there!” greeted the woman, leaning closer to inspect the cat, and said feline merely turned its head away, nudging its nose to Eren’s chest, effectively hiding its head in the softness of his toga.

The young hunter smiled awkwardly at the woman, cautiously leaning the cat away from her. “He is a bit shy, you see. But he easily warms up to people he knows well,” and he felt the feline raising its hackles, spitting and clawing into his skin. Eren tried to ignore the pain with a high-pitched laugh as he bid the woman farewell. “See you next week!” and with that, he ran away fast from the nearby people, some of them being inadvertently nudged by him in the process.

Eren heaved and darted his eyes back and forth quickly, making sure to avoid the people he knew as he turned to a corner, away from the merchants and other prying eyes.

He crouched behind a large vase made of red clay, looked around to see if the coast was clear, and when all was done, he peered inside his toga to see the black cat hissing and glaring at him in all its fluffy glory.

Eren bared his teeth at the little thing, ready to grab it by its neck and throw it away, but he couldn’t. So he did the next best thing—he rubbed its chin with his forefinger.

And the feline closed its steel-gray eyes and purred in his hold, twitching and lowering its ears as it leaned its neck back—

“Now, now. Don’t be so fussy, god of death—I can’t handle that scratch on my chest if you keep on clawing at it.”

As though he said the magic words, the feline—the god-turned-cat—opened its now slitted eyes once more, and the black wisps of smoke that have been surrounding Eren unknowingly became larger, engulfing the hunter’s vision around him.

A low hiss could be heard, and Eren felt the little claws on his chest turn into something longer, and sharper—sharp enough to draw a bead of blood.

Hot breath fanned on his neck, and while he still couldn’t see because of the amount of smoke around him, he was sure that the god—

“Next time, don’t describe me like I’m an incapacitated being that’s needed to be coddled.”

—had finally returned to his real form.

The black mist slowly dissipated, and sea-green eyes squinted at the black-clad god leaning a bit too close on his chest and neck.

Eren felt his heart stop for what seemed an eternity.

The immortal, the _god_ , was licking away the little wound he caused with his claws and talons, and he wordlessly dared him with steel-gray eyes.

Eren gulped, and felt the wind being knocked out of him as he locked eyes with the masked Levi inclining so intimately on his torso. Before, he didn’t mind it at all that Levi accompanied him in the pretense that he had to carry a portable-sized, feline-shifting god of death in his hands, but now—

“Stop ogling at me, brat. You’re going to catch flies in that mouth of yours.”

—he was sure that those were Levi’s hipbones and backside he was feeling on his palms.

Eren’s mouth suddenly became dry as threads of black smoke curled teasingly around his arms, tickling his suddenly feverish skin to no end.

How did it end up like this?

* * *

In the realm of the underworld, three pairs of eyes watched intently at the scene unfolding before them. Shown in the seam was a pale-faced and wide-eyed male adolescent, mute and unmoving at the mysterious, black smoke-clad being draped so personally on top of him.

A black-hooded, blond man chuckled at the sight he was seeing through the seam, “Looks like this is about to get interesting, eh, fellows?”

A black-hooded blonde and blue-eyed woman merely exhaled, as though she had seen the event developing through the seam so many times. “As long as they don’t cause massive deaths on earth, then all is fine with me. I don’t want them to be harbingers of massacres. Just think of the pains I have to go through to spin more threads only for you to cut it.”

Another hooded man laughed, albeit more sincerely than the other male. Scratching his short, ebony locks, he placed a comforting hand on the temperamental female. “Let’s just see where this will all lead to, all right? Maybe this will end for the better. And if it doesn’t, well, I can always cut their threads for you.”

* * *

Hange, the ferrywoman setting her ships of souls from the river Styx, whistled a chipper tune as she rowed towards the gates of the underworld. Upon arriving there, she stretched her arms overhead, almost whining as she heard her bones crack. She turned towards the gray and washed out spirits with a huge grin and raised her scythe in the air.

“All right, new recruits! Time to face the gods of the netherworld! To your right is the Elysium fields—lucky you if you get there. On your left is where all of you will be judged by the stuck-up Judges.” She placed her hands on her hips, her smile still wide as she pointed her scythe to the place where the Judges reside, “In there, you’ll see the final stuck-up Judge I’m talking about. He’ll be the one who’ll see where y’all be heading. The name’s Kitts. Don’t let his squeaking, scratchy voice fool ya—he’s just a scatterbrained fool. Or so my friend said.”

Hange beamed at the sullen faces of the moaning spirits, and upon realizing that they have nothing to say at all, she clapped her hands energetically with a loud cheer. “Off to see the god who rules this place! And if it seems that I’m rushing explaining and not explaining certain things here… it’s because I really am rushing trying to explain things not worth explaining. Did that make you confused? Haha—fine, I’ll stop.” And she clamped her mouth shut and turned around, rowing towards the throne room of the god of death, purposefully ignoring the wretched cries of some of the souls clawing at her oar and ferry.

“Ah! Oluo! Where’s the king?” she cheerfully asked as she came up to the throne room of the king of the underworld. Seeing all four of the guards—the Cerberus—standing watch in front of the gates was a daily occurrence. It meant that either the king was inside his throne room sulking in front of the seam, or he had ventured another trip to the world above.

“My King iss out today. Ssays he doessn’t know when he’ll be back,” Oluo hissed, visibly relaxing at the sight of the king’s close friend. He and the other guards immediately lowered the spears in their hands, and they welcomed the gondolier with a quick salute.

“Eeh,” Hange frowned, scratching her auburn hair as she stared at the door handles made out of bones and swirling ebony smoke, “but I want him to greet the new recruits for today… These guys look like they’ve seen death in the face.”

Petra, the sole female guard, bowed in apology, stifling her laughter from what the ferrywoman said. “I’m sorry, Leader, but we really don’t know when the king will be back. Perhaps I could just relay it to him that there are new ones today once he returns?” It was a futile attempt at its best, but Petra tried all she could to convince the other female that Levi was really away.

Hange Zoë had always been insistent in all things concerning who she deemed to be her friends.

In the end, the ferrywoman gave up, whining and complaining to the guards that Levi should “come home more often so I could show him my new collection of trifocals.”

The four guards promised the strange woman that they would relay her message to the king, and with that, she left, cackling something about half-dead ghosts.

“I wonder what the king sees in her. I mean, lumping her with our Highness just seems too strange, don’t you think?” Gunther, a dark-skinned man with a mohawk, idly observed the still cackling woman from a distance. “I’ve been in charge of keeping the residents in hell in check, but I really just can’t make any sense out of her.”

Oluo harrumphed and crossed his arms, looking snidely at Gunther with a smirk, “You don’t know how the king’ss mind workss at all, do you? He sseess the potential in everyone he assignss in this place, and I’m ssure he chose her for a role that’ss ssuitable only for her—ah!”

Petra merely raised an eyebrow at the now kneeling and cursing man, “If only you’d stop biting your tongue so much… ah. My King!”

And all four of them looked at their right, and they quickly saluted the slowly approaching god.

“Leader Zoë has just left, My King!” announced Petra with a stern face, “she told us the newly-dead souls have arrived!”

“I’ll see them later,” Levi, whose face still remained masked, merely hummed and nodded slightly, and he turned to Oluo, who was still saluting him with a bloody mouth.

“Wipe off the blood from your face, Oluo. You’re embarrassing me.”

And the snake-tongued man quickly excused himself and obeyed his order, ignoring the hushed snickers from Eld and Petra.

Levi turned to the doors, and Gunther, who was near it, opened the throne room with a bow, not before noticing something odd perched on top of the god’s head.

“My King,” he began, eyes blinking at the strange string of stems sitting on the king’s horns, “what is that on your head, if I may ask?”

Levi paused in his steps and tilted his head.

Petra noticed it, too, and she observed the ring of thin stems peculiarly placed on his head. “Are those stems from flowers perhaps, my King?”

The god suddenly stiffened, and he patted his head and took the peculiar adornment in question, huffing and stifling a smile as he regarded the dead leaves and circlet of stems with something akin to contentment. Toying with some of the brittle sprigs and malleable petals, he couldn’t help but remember the one who made it for him.

A certain pair of aquamarine eyes flashed in his mind’s eye, and he suddenly felt the urge to hold the decayed flowers dear.

“They used to be flowers, yes,” Levi replied lowly, and it didn’t escape Petra’s keen sense of observation that something inexplicable happened to their precious king. Something inexplicable and, dare she think— _positive_.

Eld silently glanced at a poker-faced Gunther, and Oluo looked at a furrow-browed Petra.

They all seemed to want to ask a single question out loud, but they lack the courage to do so, and Levi, unaware of what his guards were thinking, merely clutched the circlet of stems and dismissed them with a solemn nod. He went inside the throne room, and the doors were shut closed.

The four guards looked at each other knowingly, and they all nodded to themselves.

* * *

Seventy-five withered coronets of thin stems and dead flowers in all. Those were the number of days he had been spending with the mortal hunter.

Levi rested on his velvety chaise longue made of raven’s feathers and ivory, studying the way the stalks were coiled and intertwined around each other. Careful not to undo a single stem, he touched the fragile thing with only the tips of his talons, inspecting it at a reasonable distance from his eyes, and his mind would reel back to the times when he would be given a flower wreath.

Every day, since the day that they met, Eren would give him a flower wreath, to remember him by, was what the hunter reasoned—and it really did the trick. The mortal knew the flowers would die the moment he left the god’s side, yet that didn’t stop him from giving him a wreath of fresh blooms a day, totaling to the number that Levi had now.

The god let out a chuckle, and rested one of the withered circlets on top of his head, twitching his ears every now and then, as the edges of the wilted stalks tickled him.

It was nighttime in the human realm, and it meant that the young hunter was fast asleep in his house near the meadows.

He recalled the day when he met the brash male—all smiles and laughs and occasional frowns and glares, yet Levi intrigued him, captivated him, even.

And he remembered, on the day of the competition that Eren was so determined to win on, the hunter had tried all his best to capture the evasive stag needed to hunt. ‘Whoever could catch it would be granted a wish by the hunting goddess’, after all.

Yet Eren didn’t win. He had been defeated by another mortal by the name of Jean—a steed-faced fellow, as Eren described. Since then, Eren became even more hotheaded than ever.

Although, whenever it came to showing Levi around the meadows and the forests, he seemed to emit a strange level of calm and contentment, oftentimes trying to show the god a thing or two that never grew in the depths of the netherworld.

Levi closed his eyes, Eren’s recent words ringing in his ears—words of wanting to be free from the lands that bound him.

And through it all, the words that Pixis said to him during his last visit echoed loud in his memory.

“ _Should I suggest someone who doesn’t know of your reputation to steal the life of anything that you pass by?_ ”

All this time, Pixis knew. He knew that he would meet Eren— _that sly_ geezer—yet something seemed amiss.

The hunter, even before they met, knew of Levi’s reputation to bring death all around him, nevertheless, he still chose to stay close to him.

The immortal wondered why.

Steely eyes glanced at the seam, and it showed a darkened room, wherein a certain impulsive hunter was resting on a bed of linen sheets and feather-down pillows, frowning the world away in his slumber, and the god couldn’t help but twitch the slightest hint of a smile.

His eyes widened, however, when he saw Eren suddenly woke up, completely startled by something, and observed everything around him, looking much shocked to something that the god didn’t know.

And Levi watched for a sign of anything that screamed danger lurking nearby.

He saw Eren jolting to a sound that Levi hadn’t heard, and the hunter gritted his teeth and bolted up the bed, and he reached under his pillow to take out a rather large knife as the door to his room opened.

Levi’s fanged teeth gnashed at what he saw next.

Black flames erupted from his form, and it engulfed the dark room, setting everything ablaze.

* * *

The cloaked, black-haired man gulped as he looked through the seam. Standing smiling beside him was the blond man, who had his arm draped on his shoulder. The sole woman of the Fates stood idly by, watching the unfurling scene with disinterested blue eyes.

“I told you two it will be interesting. Heh. Do it, Bertolt,” the blond jeered, grinning at the sight of the mortal taking a stance to fight for the unknown being that was to barge in his room.

Bertolt, the reaper of the thread of life, stood still as he watched through the seam hopelessly.

Clenching his eyes shut, he reached for the shears meant for cutting lives—

—and he snipped the mortal’s thread.

From a distance, the Fates swore they heard a piercing cry.

* * *

 


	3. Chapter 3

An axe flew past the startled hunter, its cleaving blow ripping a slit on the wall behind him.

It all happened too fast.

Another blade, a sharp dagger of sorts, appeared from the man’s sleeve, and he moved to make a strike at the furious Eren.

The middle-aged man have always had a huge grudge against Eren for always getting the high end of the money by hunting more beasts than him. The young hunter knew that grudge well, and he had always turned a blind eye to it.

And now, the man was taking his grudge too far.

Gritting his teeth, Eren hopped out of the bed and charged at the man with a cry, and he stabbed the large knife at the man who had just barged in his room, and the blade pierced the man’s heart in one swift strike—

—not before the dagger had punctured through the hammering flesh of one yelling Eren.

All seemed to fade in and out of his vision. And the gurgling mess of jumbled words from the mess of a man was like a song of victory in Eren’s thumping ears.

The man, who always remained faceless to Eren’s eyes, clenched his teeth at the red-faced hunter, spluttering a string of expletives before his breath left him.

The air suddenly smelled like stale blood and ale and nose-cringing smoke as the man fell down the wooden floor with a dull thud.

The disquiet was almost too comforting, and a smile crept its way to the hunter’s now blood-stained lips as green eyes met that of the corpse’s shallow ones.

All the red that had been blinding Eren’s eyes were now blinding his skin and flesh and innards. And the shakiness of his hands couldn’t control the bleeding to stop even for a moment. The red dyed the cedar wood floor in an unsettling pool of scarlet.

And everything became black and white as he, too, fell on the muddle of his own blood.

* * *

 

Spears and courage at the ready, the Cerberus rammed the doors open with all of their strength, their feet and minds ready for the incoming attack of the being so impetuous as to charge into the death god’s room without being granted entrance—

Yet no one was there. No one other than the god of the underworld himself kneeling on the now fissured stone floor, letting out an ear-shattering cry of pain and anguish as flames of red and black and smoke of gray and ebony flourished and covered his petite yet intimidating form.

Petra clenched her teeth and squinted as she tried to see through the thickness of the smoke and flames. There was their king, screaming out in what seemed to be anger and pain as he clawed on the splintered stones, crushing them to bits in his fierce grasp, and the clear sound of something cracking rattled the guards’ nerves.

Oluo, in his surprise, stepped back, as the god’s screams became even louder, and Levi’s talons became ruthless blades on his head, yanking at every inch of his own pale and peeling skin until pieces of his mask cracked and flaked away, leaving a bit of tuft of black locks beneath the mask of iron.

Petra wanted to intervene, and she stepped forward, only to be stopped by a grave-looking Eld, who could only watch in stunned shock as the iron mask slowly cracked from the unyielding talons and the heat of the sweltering flames of anger that coursed through Levi’s bellows, melting and dissolving the metal the second it chipped away from his own skin—

—and a loud, choked cry had wrung out of his dry lips, his throat already sore and raw from yelling out a garbled name.

* * *

 

A cacophony of voices echoed, all of them ethereal-like, of a far distance, of nostalgia.

The first voice was from someone whom he couldn’t put a finger on, yet the voice seemed familiar, as though he knew who it was—from someone so long ago…

The second one, a female one, held a warmth that he couldn’t identify. Despite the screeching that accompanied the sound, he felt oddly at peace, with himself, and with the voice that he somehow held dear.

White light seemed to blind his closed eyes, and a gentle wind seemed to graze him, touching his skin with its cool and soothing breeze, and for a moment, he could almost see that he was in the meadows of Enna, hunting for his next prey, and showing it off to a certain someone that he would probably see soon—

The buzz of voices continued, speaking in tongues that he couldn’t really decipher, and they drowned his mind full of questions. How he ended up like he was now, what happened that made him like he was now, who did such a thing—

His mind was drawing a blank as a voice screeched in his mind once more. It was the voice of a woman earlier, and the words remained garbled and lost on him as he felt his arms being shook, and he felt something wet damping his cheek—a tear, perhaps?

He could hear a gasp, a sharp intake of air, and the shrieking in his ears became louder, more frantic, as he felt pressure on his stomach—

There it was again—that gasp. It was wheezing and breathless, like the sound of someone who had just taken a long run, only, this noise seemed much heavier, much unnerving and calm at the same time.

It made him feel whole, at one point.

It dawned on him, finally, when the sounds of voices and of gasping and the feeling of the seemingly fresh breeze on his skin have slowly come to a slow and agonizing halt.

A choked breath was heard, ceasing the panting once and for all.

It was only a second too late before Eren realized that the sound of gasping was from his own bloodied mouth.

The world around him stopped too soon.

Too soon.

* * *

New threads of life were being spun in between the nimble fingers of a blonde woman, her digits emitting small shards of crystal light as each thread was spun into completion.

“Annie.”

At the sound of her name, blue eyes shifted behind her, and was not surprised at all to see a towering and silently fuming god of death standing just mere centimeters from her sitting form in front of the seam.

“You arrived. Just as I expected.”

The hissing of Levi’s foreboding form didn’t faze Annie the slightest. She had a hint as to why the ominous god looked even more ominous today—all of his black hair could be seen, the dark locks sticking out in wild angles, almost unbefitting to that of the usually stoic god. His mask—or what was left of his mask—revealed glimpses of pale and flaked skin from his forehead, skin that had never once granted a peek of sunlight from the world above. A hint of a thin right eyebrow and bits of his pale cheek could be seen, right where a little crack of the iron was, and Annie could see the iron on the brink of breaking itself whole, right in the middle where his nose was supposed to be. And as Levi clenched his jaw, a bit of the iron chipped away from his left cheek, revealing more of his still concealed face.

“Care to tell me why he cut off his life, too?” It was an accusation, one that left no room for argument should Annie refuse to answer. Her blue eyes saw gritted teeth, and she looked away from him.

“The mortal you’re so fond of was bound to die, we can never control their lives—”

“But you control their deaths.”

Annie was silent after that, opting to sew new threads rather than to face the scowling immortal behind her that was now letting out black flames from his body.

She knew she would be dead if she said her words wrong.

“Do you really want that mortal so much?” she asked, cautious of the flames that were inching closer to her cloak. “It will never end well, especially if it’s with you.”

Her words struck him, and he wrapped his talons around her neck, his breath ghosting over her face as his eyes glared daggers at her, “I am the god of death, and I _will_ own him. Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

For the first time, Annie, the spinner of the threads of life, felt danger of her own life.

* * *

The spirits of the dead were led to the river of Styx, there, they paid the toll to the gondolier, Hange.

“Step up, step up, new recruits! This is going to be a long ride!” she said enthusiastically to the groaning spirits as they rode the ferry leading to the underworld. One spirit, in particular, caught Hange’s interest. That spirit looked conflicted between riding the ferry and staying on earth, his dead eyes darting back and forth, left and right, in apparent confusion.

The ferrywoman blinked, adjusting her trifocals at the distressed spirit looking much lost. “Having troubles riding a ferry, little one?” she finally asked after much observation. In response, the spirit looked at her with lost eyes, his mouth forming no words even as he opened them, and he clutched his hands to his chest, groaning in pain as a thin veil of black smoke wrapped around his body.

Hange’s eyes widened, her trifocals slipped to the bridge of her nose, and a knowing laugh crept out from her cackling lips, doubling over in laughter that no one could even fathom.

All the while, the spirit looked at her in confusion, trying to yell out words that only came out as groans, and the soft tendrils of black smoke curled around his lithe form, embracing him completely in a veil of darkness.

* * *

The throne room of the god of death remained desolated for the past three days, its charred remains leaving nothing but the stale smell of smoke and ashes.

Levi had been mourning for Eren’s passing, cooping himself up from one place to another, searching for anything that might take his mind away from the haunting mortal, yet the memories of the hunter remained in his mind, crawling into his very core with an unbearable wail. He idly scoured the realms of the underworld in complete blankness, leaving grief in the Elysium fields, and in the realm of sleep and dreams, leaving sorrow in the rivers of Acheron, and tears in the rivers of Cocytus, leaving agony in the rivers of Lethe, and leaving wretchedness in the dwellings of the Fates.

Yet nothing could wash away the screams in his barren heart. He had nothing left—it was all he had ever wanted in his bane existence as a god, as foolish as it was for him, but he had grown extremely fond of the mortal, and that fondness was cruelly ripped away from his taloned hands, leaving only fragments of memories that would surely tear him to shreds.

The Fates were truly pitiless, even more than he.

Floating his existence away to the rivers of Styx, he didn’t notice anyone in his surroundings even if his name was yelled out countless of times by a certain ferrywoman snapping her fingers in front of his masked face.

“Hey, Levi! Levi! _Leeeviii!_ ”

Said god of death blinked, his eyes now looking even more sullen than ever for the past few days, and Hange took silent note of it, opting to ignore the cracked mask and the sudden appearance of his dark hair from beneath all the shattered pieces of his cover. The black smoke around him seemed larger and thicker today, and his skin looked paler than ever, and she could only assume what the god had been through as he looked at her with blank, lifeless eyes.

Her smile faltered just the tiniest bit, and she clamped her lips and glanced over to her ferry.

“I think I found something that might interest you today—”

“I can never find anything of interest anymore, Hange. Leave me alone for the moment,” and he turned and walked away, only to be stopped by a scythe blocking his neck.

“Tsk, tsk. Not so fast, o Discontented King. I really think you should see this,” said Hange with a strange leer on her lips, and she took note on how murderous Levi looked as he turned to look at her, yet she took it all in casual stride as she stepped away from him and went over to her ferry, yanking a poor spirit away from the many, and she pulled the spirit in front of him with a smug smile on her face, watching Levi’s face going from vicious to shell-shocked in mere seconds—

Acting on reflex, his talons reached out to the spirit, wanting to touch it with all that he could, yet he was only met with the familiar black smoke surrounding the ghostly being, and all he could do was to kneel in guilt and stare in front of a silently weeping Eren.

A ghost of a hand tried to touch the god’s face, only to end up touching nothing as Eren’s hand passed through the immortal’s cold flesh repeatedly.

A distressed cry was all Levi could hear from the being standing in front of him, and his talons tried to grasp at the ghost’s hand, meeting only nothing but smoke and mist as Eren let out a garbled wail.

It was all the spirits could say once they have entered the world of the dead.

And Levi let out a wrenching cry.

Hange vainly stood by, looking at the god and the spirit with sad eyes.

* * *

He had fought long and hard to Hange and the Judges of the Dead, making them cower in fear with his presence and power, and Levi, in the end, had won over the pardoning of the spirit of one dead hunter.

His condition was to let the spirit roam free in the underworld, locked within the realm of Erebus yet not locked within the Elysium fields or the Asphodel meadows—the only exception being Tartarus, as Levi himself strictly forbade the distressed spirit not to go there, for fear of him seeing torment and suffering once more.

And now, a silent and weary Eren floated listlessly beside an equally weary Levi, both of them wanting to speak to each other, yet no words could be formed as one of them could never speak.

The spirit kept on trying to touch the god’s talons as he walked beside him, and a sound that reminded the god of a wail kept on piercing his elongated ears, and Levi couldn’t help but bite his lip in restraint.

“We’re almost there,” he said to both of them, and his gray eyes glanced at the anxious face of ghost Eren, noting that the spirit looked no more than a child lost on his way home. Levi couldn’t touch him, no matter how much he wanted to, and it made him feel helpless for the first time in his immortal life. “We’re almost there,” he repeated, more so to himself than to the lost-looking spirit walking loyally beside him.

The doors leading to the god’s throne room remained looking as ashen as he had left them—all black and barren and reeked of smoke and dirt. And the Cerberus remained standing there, all four of them saluting him as he approached.

“Welcome back, my King!” they all said in unison, and Levi merely nodded solemnly, clearly not in the mood to speak of anything else. Yet, Oluo, not reading the atmosphere for once, decided to intervene and ask the god.

“Who is that with you, my King?”

To which the god simply replied, “He is the one who gives me the flowers,” and with that, he opened the doors and entered the room not sparing anyone a glance.

* * *

Aimlessly drifting in the vast yet barren throne room for two days was taking its toll on the still distressed spirit of Eren, and Levi, silently knowing what was going on in his mind, tried to come up with ways of entertaining the lost soul, yet he came up with nothing.

The anxious god called out to the jittery spirit from his charred throne, beckoning him with a taloned finger, and Eren turned and came up to him immediately with the same lost look in those dead eyes, ghostly hands wanting to touch those talons that he once held dear.

Levi frowned, and beckoned him once more, and Eren crept closer to the god with a faint glimmer of hope.

“I can’t touch you, just the same as you can’t touch me. That has always been the rule here in the underworld,” he whispered, not liking the way it looked like a one-sided conversation. “But at least we’ll keep each other company, yes?”

The pained groan from the ghostly Eren was instant, and it didn’t help the wailing grief of the god. Levi could only murmur a choked apology as he tried to wipe the spirit’s non-existent tears.

And the immortal tried to make it up to him by showing Eren all of the underworld and its inhabitants, always making sure that the spirit wouldn’t grow bored and weary by the sight of darkness and despair.

This continued on day by day, weeks by weeks, until all of the underworld have come to know of the presence of the mystifying spirit that constantly hanged around the eternally enigmatic god of death.

Levi mostly brought Eren to the Elysium fields, where the peaceful spirits walked by and the wild flowers representing death and grief grew there. It reminded the hunter of the world above, when he first met the god in the vast fields of Enna.

Levi would always stand behind him, watching Eren with a stern yet soft gaze whenever something would catch the spirit’s interest. Levi would follow Eren’s curious line of sight, and the god would always get the thing that caught his attention, and he would bring it to Eren with no qualms, opting to silently watch the hunter’s face grow blissful for even a moment.

It was the least Levi could do for inadvertently taking away the hunter’s freedom.

* * *

Today, the ghostly Eren was crouching by the grass in the Asphodel meadows, staring at the swaying blades with little thought, trying in vain to feel them graze through his translucent fingers, and Levi would watch him closely, a frown etched on his face as Eren repeatedly tried to touch something that he wanted—and it was all a futile attempt at worst.

The god sat beside the downhearted spirit, sad and sunken gray eyes observing the way Eren kneeled on the ground, clutching onto his heart and garbling in pain.

And Levi would kiss the spirit’s cheek, knowing fully well that it was a fruitless effort, yet it somehow alleviated Eren’s misery for the briefest of seconds, and the hunter would blindly reciprocate the gesture with a kiss on the god’s brow, only to end up crying moments later when he realized that his lips met nothing.

The heartrending scene played on everyday, until Petra, who had always been watching the two from afar, couldn’t take it anymore, and she promptly arranged for an audience with the Fates.  

“Give Eren back to the world above,” she demanded them, and Reiner, the measurer of life, merely laughed at Petra’s agitated form.

“There is no way we could do that. The mortal’s bound to die, anyway. It was foolish for the death god’s part to have a deep-seated attachment with someone whom he knows would die easily—the ironic thing is, he couldn’t die when the god touched him. Yet he died by the hands of a blade. Besides, he knows very well that they could never end up together—”

“You can return him to life and the process of making him a dweller here will be less of a burden to the king!” Petra spat, readying her spear for an attack, yet Reiner was not fazed the slightest, merely raising a mocking eyebrow at her outburst.

“You think I did that for the amusement of the king? Hah. Get a grip, guard dog,” he smirked at her grim face, “I did all of that so I could see him suffer. Suffer more than how all the trapped dwellers here are suffering now.”

“You think he did that on purpose?” Petra shrieked, tears forming at her eyes for hearing him say such a thing about Levi. “He had no choice! He was condemned here!”

A scuffle of words were exchanged between Petra and Reiner, both of them getting heated in an argument that was about to burst until Annie stepped in and stopped both of them.

“Stop bickering like children, you two.” It was all she said, and Reiner backed out with an annoyed huff while Petra remained glaring and pointing her spear at Reiner’s heart.

Glacier-blue eyes locked on Petra’s, and the blonde’s jaw tightened as she extended her hand to her. “There is a way—to restore the balance that you so seek. Warranting unwanted attention from the death god is not your plan, I can tell. So I will offer you one thing—

“What say you about offering some food for thought for the adorable little thing?”

* * *

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Levi slept beside a silent and frowning Eren, the god’s brows deeply furrowed the whole time as Eren observed him.

The spirit didn’t lose hope that he would someday touch the god once more, but for the meantime, he would have to satisfy himself by trying hard to touch the god’s face with his ghostly hands, holding back a cry at each attempt.

The throne room was very much cleaned up after a day—though the smell of smoke and ashes remained even after three months since the incident. The Cerberus made sure that the death god would not go into another blind rampage, hence, they made it a task that the forlorn spirit should always stay by the god’s side. Another seam from the Fates was never wanted ever again by Levi—he suddenly felt the urge to strangle all three weavers to their eternal deaths since they killed off the hunter.

The guards immediately requested to ban the Fates from entering the realm of Levi.

Levi had made no complaints in the guards’ request.

And now, the four of them were standing outside the doors doing guard duty while their king rested inside with the bereaved spirit. It had been quite a few months since the god had rested peacefully, and it had been quite a few months since Eren had slowly accepted that he was to remain in the underworld.

The spirit’s current duty was to keep the god company, and he had done well since his first day in the realm of the dead, and now, Eren observed him carefully as he slept in his large chaise lounge, noting the way the god breathed deeply with his mouth slightly open in his sleep. Long, black lashes kissed pale skin, and Eren pouted at the fact that even in death, he still couldn’t see the immortal’s face. The cracked mask showed bits and pieces of the mysterious god’s face, but it still wasn’t enough for him. Sure, the mask was cracked right down the middle, but the cover itself remained fused to the silvery skin, and Eren’s ghostly fingers twitched at seeing a bit of the iron flaking away at the tiniest bit of facial movement from the god.

He laid down with him, his ghostly face mere inches from his, yet he could feel nothing as Levi breathed on his face.

Eren stifled a whine as he stared at the god’s closed eyes.

* * *

Hange cheered her usual tune when she steered the dead along the underworld, whooping in joy whenever she mentioned the aspect of mortality, and she, in her usual routine, travelled towards the throne room leading to Levi and the Cerberus and the new resident there.

In a short matter of time, she had grown overly fond of Levi’s newfound interest, often jesting the god that he had finally found a little bit of a heart, and the latter would merely touch her scythe, turning it to rust in no time. And she would wail and panic, as she had always have, and the process would repeat itself.

Hange, as Levi crudely commented at one point, was the only one who could touch the spirits, as though they were still made of flesh and blood. It was one thing that Levi detested from her—envied, even. And it became even more apparent when he had yearned more and more of Eren’s touch as days passed by, even it was from a ghostly caress.

She noted the way that Eren would often try to cling onto the god, yet it always ended up with him groaning in agony at the fact that he couldn’t touch him.

“Levi!” Hange cried out as soon as she greeted the Cerberus and barged in the room. “I got bad news for you and good news for Eren!”

* * *

“ _What say you about offering some food for thought for the little thing?_ ” Those were the words that rang loud and clear in Petra’s befuddled mind. For the weaver of life to suggest such an offer to her—for her king and his love—the price was too much.

She clutched her fists in her cloak, and she carefully observed her fellow guards. None were looking at her suspiciously. That was good.

She idly thumbed the tiny little things inside her cloak’s pocket, and she gulped, eyeing Oluo warily.

Petra would have to be sly and crafty, for once.

This is all for my King, she repeated in her heart.

* * *

“What do you mean bad news for me and good news for Eren?” Levi drawled lowly from his throne, grumbling as a ghostly Eren tried to wrap his arms around the god. The spirit looked at the ferrywoman with a questioning gaze, his dead eyes blinking at her.

Eren, it seemed, had finally accepted that he would never return to the world of the living, Hange observed.

“Someone is wreaking havoc above for quite a few days now—and I think it’s someone who Eren knows very well,” she said with a large smile and a wink.

Levi hummed, and he looked at Eren wordlessly. As though sensing the unspoken question, Eren shook his head and inched closer as his ghostly body would allow, not really understanding what she meant.

“Stop it with the riddles and humor, Hange. Who is it?”

A display of pearly white teeth, a teasing tilt of her head, and a sly smile. “Why, none other than the goddess of agriculture herself, _and_ the mother of that adorable little thing clinging behind you—Carla.”

* * *

Pixis sat in his cloud-like throne, and stared intently at a fuming Carla, who stood in front of him dressed in her usual floor-length, sea-green toga, her eyes seething daggers at the passive god.

“I want my son back,” she curtly demanded, her voice restraining the underlying anger. It had been exactly seven months since Eren’s untimely death, and she had never gotten over the grief of losing her only son. “I have repeatedly heard stories from my child whenever he returned home. Since ten moons ago, it was always the same train of words—that he had met a strange creature in the fields of Enna, seeking his company like a bee to a flower, a liliputian being whose face is always masked in iron, whose fingers are long and taloned, and is always covered in a veil of smoke from shoulders to feet, along with a black cape that bedecked everything in death whenever it touches the ground. I think you know very well that that is your insensible brother. That diminutive, what’s-his-face, Levi.”

Pixis closed his eyes, his mind deep in thought as he pondered over Carla’s words—ignoring the sure insult on Levi being liliputian (the death god wouldn’t hear the end of it). True, since the death of her only son made her heart weaken and utterly distraught, the result was very much alarming.

People on earth were slowly dying, much of the vegetation and greenery on land and on various parts of the earth were rapidly withering away—and it was all because Carla, the goddess of agriculture, had been mourning for the departed Eren. No matter how much offerings were delivered to her temple, her refusal to make the land return to life wouldn’t budge, and her sorrow could not be appeased.

“I should have asked you to turn him into a god in the first place—a sip of ambrosia in his body, as I expected, didn’t suffice.” Carla’s tone was grim, her face reflecting torment and guilt.

The god idly thumbed his mustache, humming at Carla’s colorful description of one god of death. “I suppose you’re insinuating that you’re blaming the death god for Eren’s demise?” It was a theory, nonetheless, but judging from her now wide eyes and slight jolt of shoulders, it assured Pixis’s confirmation. He clicked his tongue at her, almost disappointed. “Out of all the assumptions you should be thinking, it has to be the most farfetched one.”

A showy display of gnashing teeth and hardened eyes painted Carla’s face. “What do you mean?”

He scrunched his lips in something akin to distaste. Shaking his head at her, he sighed. “Your son is very much well-loved by the god you are damning so profusely, contrary to what you just said. Oh, trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen his encounter with your son since day one. Levi did all he could to repel him through threatening him and telling him of his true nature as a god, but your headstrong son had none of it, and continued to befriend him despite knowing what Levi truly is.”

Carla looked away and bit her lip, her face still twisted in restrained anger, “He should have just left my son there in the fields that day and slept somewhere else.”

Pixis cocked an eyebrow, “You knew?”

She let out a huff, mocking him with a sneer, “About what? About the fact that Eren didn’t tell me that that dirty god killed the Golden Tree in Enna with his presence alone? Why, of course I do! It was only through Eren’s touch that the tree came back into fruitage. He thought I would never know, but I do know it. I never said anything to him, though. Not after how much reverence Eren spoke of for that thing. Do you know how furious Mikasa is? Eren is her most favorite mortal, that’s why he possesses the power of being a great hunter. She had given it to him when I bore him to this world, and he knows that very well. It’s a wonder that another mortal bagged the first place during the competition, but rules are rules and Mikasa had to follow them.”

Pixis guffawed, irking Carla even more. “What’s so funny this time?” she spat. And Pixis merely grinned at her.

“Hitch has made her move, I see.”

* * *

The seeds sat in Petra’s palm, all red and damp on her skin. She had been looking at it, contemplating on whether she should give them to the one that her king held dear.

Annie the spinner, the one who gave her the seeds, had yet to tell her what its purpose was. All Petra knew was that she was told that if she were to give those seeds for Eren to eat, the spirit would return to the living.

Now, it was all a matter of courage to give them to the bereaved being.

Though a question nagged her mind since Annie told her of those things.

How could a spirit eat something that was tangible?

“Petra,” she suddenly heard Oluo pipe up beside her, and she jolted, hurriedly yet discreetly pocketing the seeds back where he couldn’t see them. “We’re going to guard Acheron today. Gunther and Eld will take charge over the gatess.”

Petra bit her lip, willing the nervousness away from her voice. “Oh, I see.” She glanced back at the closed doors, almost close to raising her voice when Oluo took her hand and walked away with him.

From within the throne room, she was sure that the king was showering the lonely spirit with his purely undivided attention.

* * *

Barren fields filled the vast lands of earth, draping everything in famine and desperation. The temples of the gods and goddesses were terribly desecrated and abandoned, leaving no life of a single servant in its wake. All offerings, decorations and valuables of the pantheons were either stolen or destroyed in the wake of the widespread panic of the famished people of Greece.

The gods have abandoned the people, they have screamed to the heavens, crying out to Olympus to hear their dying plea.

Yet amongst the throngs of bemoaning people, there was Carla, decked in her usual attire of ethereal sea-green toga, walking down the deserted markets of the land with her bare feet, yet not a single speck of terra firma touched her olive skin.

“As long as the gods refuse to hear my plea, I will keep on drowning the people in misery—my child is to be returned to me, and the earth will return to its former state.”

A human couple who were holding hands, both pale and weakened by the famine, passed her by, unknowing of the goddess that graced their presence, and for a moment, Carla remembered Pixis’s words.

And she shook her head, unbelieving of the things he said to her.

“This isn’t Hitch’s doing. Levi is a manipulator for taking away my child just like that—it’s not an act of love.”

* * *

“Death toll is rising every day, Levi. This is alarming, you know! And—” Hange deeply sighed, looking at her best friend with pity, “Levi, please. Eren is not even alive, leave him there for a momen—”

Levi ignored Hange’s remark, and opted to try and stroke Eren’s untouchable hair. The spirit was lying on his lounge, curled up into a ball, his very core dead to the world. “Shut it, Hange. At least give me this chance to touch him even if it’s not real.”

The ferrywoman let him be, shaking her head forlornly at the sad sight of her crumbling friend.

Levi was drowning in the deepest depths of misery, and the god himself did not know it. Only she could see how broken the immortal had become after seeing the death of the hunter.

She turned and walked away, mumbling silently to herself as she gripped her scythe tightly.

“ _There is a way to bring him back, you know. And you don’t have to be this way..._ ”

* * *

Oluo observed Petra with a soft gaze, curious about the way she was acting strangely. She had been fumbling with her pockets for the past few days, fidgeting every now and then whenever anyone would call her. It was odd, yet Oluo said nothing about her, opting to merely observe her from afar, willing to help her out once she told him to.

“Petra,” he called out. He had been calling her five times already, and she had yet to respond.

Oluo felt a hand on his shoulder, and he saw Eld shaking his head at him, frowning.

Oluo left Petra alone, and he looked at her as he walked away, watching her looking sadly at the rivers of Acheron, her hands clutched close to her chest.

* * *

“I can’t do it.”

Petra stood behind Annie, who kept on ignoring her as she spun new threads with her spindly fingers, as she had always been doing. Her cloak covered her golden hair, concealing her expression when Annie glanced sideways. Only the tip of her nose could be seen, and Petra’s face hardened.

The spinner of life was mocking her wordlessly, that much she knew.

And the other two of the Fates were standing there in the corners, standing like guards of the spinner herself.

“Why can’t you do it?” Annie finally asked, facing her with her ever constant passive face. “Tucking your tail between your legs like the guard dog that you are?”

Petra gritted her teeth, her hands itchy to clutch her spear and stab her right in the face. “Eren is a nice person. A kind soul. A blameless one! I cannot do that to him and the king!”

Annie huffed, and removed her hands from the seam that emitted new threads, “It is to be done if you want to preserve your king’s happiness. Or is it the other way around?”

Petra gasped as Annie’s face suddenly crept up on her, icy blue eyes boring into hers. “You want to preserve _your_ happiness by stealing his?”

Cold sweat dripped down her brow, her eyes wide and unfocused. “I don’t understa—”

Annie grabbed Petra’s spear, crushing her fist in her vicious grip. “Don’t play dumb, princess. Everyone in the underworld knows of your unspoken love for the king. Now,” her features softened, her smile appearing caring, loving even, as she tilted Petra’s chin with her forefinger. “All you need to do is to give the poor little thing these seeds, make him eat it once the time is right, and everyone will claim their happiness.”

Petra wavered in Annie’s hold, her grip on her spear loosening as Annie smiled eerily, her hand snaking its way to the guard’s pocket where the seeds were surely nestled there.

“Do it. For you— _and for your King_.”

* * *

Levi paced the throne room almost restlessly, glancing at the sleeping Eren every now and then. The spirit had been resting for a good six hours now, and the god was slowly becoming a tad worried.

He sat on the edge of his lounge beside the curled up spirit, as though inching closer to him might rouse Eren from his sleep.

A foolish thought, it was, but it kept Levi sane. At least, that was what he had been repeating in his head.

Mumbling Eren’s name, it was the only thing that leveled the god’s feet to the ground. It was his mantra, the sole thing that held his reason.

“I’m falling apart,” he mumbled to himself, and he laid down beside him, careful not to nudge the hunter’s untouchable body. “What have you done to me, you mortal.”

* * *

The rivers of death that led to the underworld were as sorrowful as always, and a frowning Eren observed them all from one of the cliffs in Erebus, aware of the fact that Levi stood behind him, forever looking at him with those sad eyes.

Being unable to convey his thoughts through words, it frustrated him. Eren wanted to say things to the death god, to touch the god’s face, or maybe even to get a glimpse of his mysterious visage, yet he couldn’t do anything anymore, not now that he was dead.

“I’m sorry,” he heard Levi say, and it always hurt Eren to hear the god say those words. The death god had nothing to do with his untimely demise, both parties knew that, but still—

Levi blamed himself. For something that he never did.

A guttural groan slipped past Eren’s transparent lips, and Levi heard it.

An arm tried to encircle his waist, and Eren turned around, facing him with lifeless eyes. The arm instantly fell limp to his side.

“I’m sorry,” Levi repeated, eyes still sad and lips still frowning. And Eren couldn’t help but let out another groan of pain, unshed tears coming out as grumbled cries.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated yet again, and Eren furiously shook his head, crying out as he tried to embrace the death god. And Levi closed his eyes to the pain that crossed the hunter’s face as his body passed through him.

Levi knelt to the ground and hovered his taloned hands over the weeping being.

“I’m sorry.”

It was all he could ever say.

* * *

A year went by, and the earth was filled with starvation, blanketing everything in a field of white and coldness, the absence of spring was overwhelming—yet the grieving Carla could not be wavered, and she constantly wept for her son.

She didn’t care if her temples were abandoned, didn’t care if every living thing on earth were to die away—as long as it would be a way to trigger a saving grace to bring her son back.

“At this rate, everyone will die, you know,” gods have repeatedly told her, yet Carla couldn’t be swayed. The earth would remain barren if Eren were never returned.

“My decision stays,” it was all she said.

And the earth remained covered in snow for a year and a half.

* * *

“Eren, I finally managed to make a flower circlet.” A passive-faced Levi showed him a thin circlet of white lilies, each stem wound into perfection, and he placed it on top of his head, the stems grazing his horns—

—and Eren smiled for the first time in a long while, those lifeless eyes almost emitting joy in their usual vibrant green.

It took the god a long while before he could make a proper flower circlet, and it took Eren pains before he could instruct the god well through vague gestures and mumbled groans.

And now Levi could do it—Eren was so proud.

Eren grinned, something that Levi hadn’t seen in a long period of time, and it made the god wonder if he could make him smile everyday once more, just as he did when the hunter was alive.

A tear fell from one steel gray eye, and for once, Levi was thankful for his mask.

Though Eren could see the lone tear through the cracked gaps and the bit of space on his mask, he never asked him why he cried.

The sight of Levi’s clenched teeth and bitten lower lip was enough of an answer to Eren’s suffering mind.

* * *

Levi continued to make flower wreaths for Eren in the Asphodel meadows, day by day, night by night. It was something to make him smile even for a fleeting moment—and the god’s works didn’t disappoint.

A ghostly peck on the cheek or the lips of the god would be placed by a smiling Eren, and Levi would return the favor by touching his ghostly face, talons cautiously avoiding his ethereal skin as though Eren were still made of flesh and blood.

Levi would sigh, and the spirit would lean his back on the god’s chest, and they would sit there, both of them silent, both of them tired from the mental exhaustion of trying to caress each other in a perfectly futile attempt.

Petra sat behind some withered shrubbery, her small and cloaked figure sitting afar from the king and the spirit.

She clutched her hands to her chest, and the seeds felt damp in her palms.

* * *

Eren smiled as a wild flower bloomed in the middle of dead sand, blooming its purple petals like the hope that slowly bloomed in his weary heart.

Levi sat beside him, unspeaking and expressionless as he had always been as he observed the oddly amused spirit with sullen eyes.

His mask had been chipping away at the littlest bit day by day, and he couldn’t do anything but to let it be. Not even the Underworld’s blacksmith, Keith, could help him with his predicament.

But it didn’t mean anything, as he will never leave the realm of the dead anymore, right?

“Eren, would you take a walk with me?”

At this, the spirit looked at him with large, lifeless eyes, his expression turning almost hopeful that he would be taken to someplace new—

“It won’t be long, I promise.”

* * *

Hange sat on the edge of her ferry, her cloaked feet dangling near the damned souls on the river Styx. She was smiling giddily, her eyes darting quickly in search of something interesting to find as she spun her scythe in between trembling fingers. She was itching to travel the river to greet more of the departed that have been swarming more and more lately, but today was rather a slow day—

A small movement was seen from where she sat and, upon squinting, she grinned manically.

“Looks like today will not be boring, after all.”

She could see a frowning Levi walking purposefully down the ashen ground, leaving trails of depression and death in his wake. And behind him was a wide-eyed and smiling Eren, trying to desperately clutch onto Levi’s cape, even knowing fully well that it was useless to do.

“Yo, Grumpy King and Eren!” she greeted with a whoop of joy as she jumped from her seat, trampling on the wailing sea of souls as she did so. “What brings ya here?” she cheered, creeping up to Eren as the spirit quickly hid behind Levi.

“Don’t scare him, Nutcase. I came to ask you something,” was his quick reply, and, after saying words to calm Eren down, Levi sharply looked at Hange in the eye.

“Lead me to the goddess of life.”

The gondolier’s eyes widened, realization dawning on her. “You couldn’t possibly mean—”

Levi nodded gravely, steel-gray eyes darting to the confused spirit, “I will help Eren return to life.”

* * *

From one of the seams in the dwellings of the Fates, Reiner, the measurer of life, smirked as he watched the scenes in the seam, nodding to himself as Bertolt fidgeted beside him.

“That’s a bad move, King. A really bad move,” Bertolt muttered to himself.

All the while, Annie stood behind them, watching everything with indifferent blue eyes.

“Everything is going according to plan.”

* * *

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

News of Levi’s plan to revive a mortal have spread far and wide like wildfire in Olympus, and some have called him absurd and uncalled for. A double standard that it was, as some gods have done what Levi was planning now, some of the gods called Levi an abominable god, and some have even called for his head—yet Pixis merely shrugged them off with nonchalance, not hearing any of their worthless pleas.

“Some of you are hypocrites, right? Even going as far as to try and lay down with the dead just for the purpose of short-lived pleasure. But Levi has none of that.”

Olympus quelled down their demands to make the death god step down from his position in the underworld, yet some mischievous ones never seemed to live it down—

—until the day that the news had reached Carla’s ears through one of the nymphs that resided near the mountains of Olympus, and the goddess merely huffed, saying that it was only a bluff and nothing more. Yet at the back of her mind, she clung onto a sliver of hope that what she heard was true—that Levi would one day bring Eren back to life through one goddess.

Even so, she hated Levi with a burning passion.

* * *

Warm light flooded the realm of the goddess of hearth and life, and in the center of the warmness of it all, there was a blonde, little woman, dressed in a two-shouldered, golden toga that reached down to the soles of her tiny and bare feet. She sat on top of a ball of fire that didn’t seem to burn her skin. She looked straight ahead, her face as small and charming as always—always guarding the households of Greece with her overflowing warmth and kindness.

A tall, freckled, tanned and auburn-haired woman decked in a thigh-high, beige toga and gladiator sandals approached the little blonde, and she inched close to the blonde’s ear, whispering something to her that made her gasp.

“He is planning to do a resurrection?”

The freckled woman nodded gravely, and the goddess of life and hearth pursed her lips in that adorable manner of hers as she looked away from her.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of the god of death wanting to revive someone, and a mortal, no less. Intriguing, indeed. What is the name of this mortal that moved the death god so much that he would go as far as to remove him from the dead and return him to the living?”

Ymir, the hearth goddess’s guardian, snorted and leaned away from her, placing her hands on her sides, looking at the goddess, Historia, with a smirk. “A mortal hunter that went by the name of Eren. Son of Carla and a favorite of Mikasa. Winds of zephyr had it that he died by a single stab to the stomach and slowly bled to death until Mikasa and Carla arrived the next morning, only to find him heaving his last breath. Sad story, it was.”

Historia bit her lip, sniffled, and wiped away the tears that gathered from her eyes. Easily empathetic that she was, she was easily moved by Eren’s tragic end. “A poor being, that mortal. But what does that have to do with the cold death god?”

At this, Ymir flashed her a wide leer and a proud stance, eyebrows wagging as though she had received the greatest news. “Oh, I thought you might ask, dear Historia. You see, our emotionless, impassable god of underworld here has finally found an interest—a _love_ interest!—and it is the mortal hunter that died!”

* * *

The goddess of love and beauty, Hitch, entered the abode where Pixis resided, sauntering her way in her thin, gaudy, purple toga that reached dangerously high above her thighs, each slow, deliberate step hiking the cloth even more—and Pixis couldn’t help but stare.

“I heard you called for me, old man?” she taunted with a teasing tone upon her constantly smarmy face, one hand placed on one jutting hip as she slowly walked to the throne where Pixis sat.

Pixis snorted, wiping the remnants of wine dripping from his lips, and he regarded Hitch with approval. “Why, yes. I called you. Though I would like you stay more time here so I could fancy looking at you, I’ll cut to the chase—why did you make Levi fall for him?”

“Eh?” Hitch frowned and scratched her short, blonde, wavy hair, knowing her pose made her bosom lift just the slightest. “I didn’t do no nothing, old man, if that’s what you’re asking.” She saw Pixis narrowing his eyes, and Hitch harrumphed, “The heartless midget chose everything on his own—I have no involvement in their affairs.”

“So I’m wrong in assuming that you have anything to do with Eren having to pass ‘by chance’ in the fields of Enna that day when Levi was napping on the Golden Tree?”

Hitch eyed Pixis haughtily, that smug smile forever etched on her face as she spun around playfully, her toga swaying just enough for anyone to glance under her clothes, “Who knows...?”

* * *

Levi was away to look at the departed spirits today, leaving Eren alone to wander off on his own.

The subject of Levi asking for a resurrection for Eren remained untouched since they left Hange seven days ago.

Eren didn’t know if Levi would fulfill his promise to bring him back to life, but his hope was strong.

He didn’t want the god to pressure him, though. So Eren let Levi be.

Today, the curious spirit was in the abode of the underworld’s blacksmith, Keith. An intimidating man that he was, Eren had initially cringed and hid behind a stoned wall lined with chains and weapons when Keith loudly introduced himself as he wildly swung a hammer in the air—and that happened just two weeks ago. Levi had lectured the blacksmith for a good two hours back then, the sole topic being “don’t just randomly introduce yourself and lash out at everyone who enters this damned place.”

But now, Eren seemed to have calmed down, and was now observing the way Keith made swords and shields for the god of war, Erwin.

Lifeless green eyes looked at the brand new war equipment with the smallest hint of awe. Acting on instinct, he tried to touch the tip of the blade that was in Keith’s hand. The blacksmith didn’t even try to stop him, and opted to merely watch the spirit with sharp black eyes as Eren’s finger passed through the blade with ease, and Eren’s small smile faltered.

From behind Eren, Petra bowed her head and looked away with pity.

Hollow black eyes stared at the now lonely-looking Eren, and said nothing more. The spirit had once been told that Keith was a close friend of Carla’s, and Eren had groaned and cried at the mention of his mother. So now, Keith was keeping quiet, letting Eren discover things at his own pace, careful not to let anything related to Carla slip past his tongue lest Levi would know of Eren’s homesickness.

The death god would blame himself even more than he already was, even if he didn’t really do anything to contribute to the hunter’s death.

* * *

Meeting the dead was just an excuse to let Eren off Levi’s watchful gaze for the moment. He had assigned Petra to guard the spirit, and that thought assured him, and his heart flooded in relief when he had reached his destination.

A dwelling filled with warmth and blinding brightness.

Upon seeing the aggravating expanse of white and yellow lights as he approached the dwelling of one Historia the hearth goddess, Levi cursed and covered his eyes with his cape, and the thin black smoke that constantly surrounded him thickened considerably, concealing his body in a veil of black mist. Oluo and Eld, without words needed, covered the small form of their king, and they winced as the white light blinded their eyes through their faces concealed with their hoods.

And the three of them crouched to the warm ground, with Oluo and Eld draping their cloaked selves on Levi’s body, stifling screams that were bubbling to burst forth from their throats. The black smoke covered the three of them, and their claws were out and ready to pounce on whoever it was that brought them such blinding light.

Though they knew very well—

—creatures of the gloomy underworld were never welcomed in the threshold of the goddess of hearth.

“Who is it!” A voice loudly resounded from all around them, and Oluo gritted his teeth, bristling at the tone used on them.

Oluo snarled and raised his spear at random. “Do you not know who you’re talking to! It’ss the god of the underworld! King Levi iss here! Sshow resspect!”

The soft tap of footsteps could be heard, and the two guards raised their spears against the approaching would-be intruder.

Ymir appeared before them with a smug face, both palms raised up in mock surrender as he regarded the three beings from the underworld with amusement, especially as he looked at the still small and huddled form of one god of death.

“Welcome to Historia’s humble abode, _King_ Levi.”

Levi’s eyes and his long ears twitched, not liking the tone Ymir just used—she was mocking him, and he didn’t like it.

Sharp gray eyes slowly looked up at the tall and haughty Ymir. He said nothing, yet Oluo could tell that his king was now thinking of a sharp retor—

“Hey, Burnt Freckles. Bring me to your deity.”

Oluo bit his own tongue upon hearing Levi’s words, swallowing down the gush of blood that had spurt forth simultaneously—Eld winced.

Ymir grimaced, whether at the sight of blood pooling from Oluo’s mouth or from Levi’s choice of words, Eld would never know. But all they knew was that Historia came running down the golden stairs, hurriedly urging them to come in, scolding Ymir for being inhospitable as she did so.

That wasn’t so bad, Eld thought with a sigh.

* * *

Eren took a rest in Levi’s throne room while Petra guarded him.

The cloaked woman smiled upon seeing the spirit’s peaceful face, and in that moment, she could see why her king chose this particular mortal.

Caressing the spirit’s untouchable hair, Petra stifled a giggle. “I’m starting to act like him,” she said with an air of reverence for her king.

“You sure look happy there, princess.”

Petra gasped and sharply turned around, instinctively throwing her spear at the intruder. Said intruder merely tilted her head as the spear zoomed past her, narrowly missing her left cheek.

Petra glanced at the spirit, and she saw black smoke curling around Eren’s slumbering form, and Petra was relieved.

Shifting her attention back to the intruder, she bared her teeth, “Annie.” Her name slid like venom out of Petra’s lips, and another spear materialized in her hand, readying to aim straight at the spinner’s head—

“Easy there, princess,” Annie deadpanned, and she easily slipped away from the spear that pierced her cloak. “I just want to talk.”

“There is nothing to talk about,” Petra hissed, standing in front of Eren, her back facing him—and she glared at the spinner of life. “You have no business here,” she spat, her body now seething with anger.

“Apparently, I do,” Annie calmly stated, her expression as unfazed as always as she stepped closer to the sentinel, “I came here to tell you that the time for you to give him those seeds is coming near.” She pointed at the ghostly lump sleeping behind Petra, ignoring the death glare she was receiving. “He,” she started, “will be returned to life, and once that is done, you will give him those seeds, and you will make him eat them—and happiness will be regained.”

“H-how will I know when that is?” Petra was scared. Scared of what might happen if she would do what she would do.

She didn’t want to bring Levi’s anger upon her.

Annie began to dissipate in front of her, her cloaked form fading slowly, and Petra wanted to yell at her for not saying things clearly. Yet she held back in fear of rousing Eren from his sleep.

Right before Annie completely disappeared in front of her, Petra swore she saw her smile.

“ _You will know when the time is right, princess._ ”

Petra lunged at her, and Annie completely disappeared, and her final words echoed in the air.

“ _Do it. For you and for your King._ ”

* * *

Gunther, who had been standing in front of the gates of the throne room the whole time, fought the urge to barge in the room.

Overhearing a conversation not meant to be heard—

—he wondered if he should tell the king.

* * *

Levi couldn’t contain himself.

As soon as he entered his throne room, he gently roused Eren from his sleep—the poor thing had been feeling down lately, he couldn’t blame him. Once Eren was awake, he relayed the news to the spirit that Historia, out of sympathy for Eren’s situation, had agreed to revive him to life.

And Eren became filled with joy.

The process of granting him another chance in life on earth was promising, and he quickly floated about, happily hovering around Levi for the first time like a joyful nymph.

Levi fought back a smirk.

His schedule for a meeting with Historia was the day after the night of the full moon—and that was three days from now.

He counted the days, and for the first time, he was excited to wake up every morning to find out that his awaited resurrection was drawing near.

And so the hours ticked slowly, and the awaited day came.

Eren couldn’t contain his joy. Since he came in the underworld, everything around him screamed sadness and hopelessness—save for his Levi.

Ah, yes. The god who gave him hope once more.

And here he was now, walking towards him in his usual cool demeanor. Those wisps of smoke all around his small form demanded attention, and Eren forcibly looked away when he realized that each step the god took—with those tiny bare feet of his—a peak of that mysterious alabaster skin would show through.

Eren locked the vision of Levi and his tantalizing hipbones and collarbones and abdominals away in his mind—it was a really nice thing to look at, really; that body of his. The spirit couldn’t, wouldn’t, compare him to anyone, whether mortal or immortal—the hunter’s pure attention was on Levi’s and Levi’s alone.

His breath hitched when a taloned hand neared his hair, trying to caress the ghostly strands in vain, and those talons slowly slid down to his ghostly cheek—he didn’t notice when the god had come up to him.

Large green eyes looked at slanted gray ones—

—and Eren suddenly felt alive once more.

Closing his turquoise eyes, he leaned to the touch that he yearned to feel again, transparent hands trying to enclose around Levi’s taloned hand, and Eren let out a sigh of contentment, something that made Levi almost smile.

“It’s time, little hunter.”

* * *

Eren’s first meeting with the hearth goddess and her protector was a little hostile—on Ymir’s part, especially. The tanned huntress had repeatedly mocked and ridiculed Eren (because he was dead yet remained special in the death god’s eyes), much to Levi’s apparent anger and the Cerberus’ urge to defend their king. Though, the spirit couldn’t do anything but to glare, Historia finally decided to intervene and stop Ymir from messing around with the hunter.

The feisty spirit’s anger turned away when Historia spoke to him. A kind and gentle goddess that she was, she did all that she could to calm the god and the spirit down.

In that moment, Eren decided to trust Historia more than he trusted Ymir.

And when all was said and done, the hearth goddess made the preparations, and led them all to the sanctum where she revived the departed souls. The place was the same as it had always been—all lined with golden and crystalline walls and foundations. Never had it been used since the last century, yet Historia still knew all the things she should do to make a resurrection.

Levi and the Cerberus observed not from afar as Eren laid on a golden platform in front of Historia. The spirit’s eyes were closed, and he appeared calm to Levi’s eyes.

Ymir stood loyally beside Historia, her eyes guarding the inhabitants of the underworld with mistrust painted on her face.

A ball of white light slowly emanated from Historia’s outstretched hands, their warmth leading to the core of Eren’s ghostly body. It entered his being, and everyone, save for Historia and Ymir, became temporarily blinded by the brightness of it all.

Moments seemed to pass, and Levi and the Cerberus, who had been crouching and concealing their faces from the light, held their breath as they slowly opened their eyes and focused their blinding vision at the platform that held Eren—

—a peacefully sleeping and perfectly tangible Eren.

Levi was the first to wobbly stand on his bare feet, vision solely focused on the hunter that was now slowly opening his perfectly-made eyelids, those large turquoise eyes becoming filled with life and hope once more.

The familiar black smoke wound around Eren’s flesh and skin, the welcomed tendrils embracing the hunter as he took his first breath in his second chance in life.

And Eren slowly sat up, breath now coursing back through his lungs and mouth as the first word he mumbled was a breathless “Levi”—

And two strong arms quickly wrapped around him, knocking the wind out of his lungs.

Eren’s cries of joy filled the vast sanctum, and no one dared to interrupt his reunion with the god of death.

The Cerberus joined in on their king’s rejoicing, with Gunther and Eld breathing sighs of relief, and Oluo crying out his congratulations with a sharp wince of pain as he bit his tongue yet again.

And Petra. Sweet, kind Petra, who merely shed a tear of joy and a small smile as she looked at her king embracing his love—

A day of celebration that it was, none of them noticed the breathless and longing cry that Petra emitted as Levi kissed Eren on the brow.

From the depths of her pocket, the seeds slowly shook, reminding her what she was supposed to do.

Gunther, who saw Petra crying, placed a hand on her shoulder, and Petra wiped her tears.

* * *

The realm of Erebus had never been as vibrant as it was now. With everything so full of life and color and vividness, one would mistake it as one of the fields that the goddess of harvest always took with much needed care. New species of flora bloomed in the Asphodel meadows and in the Elysium fields, giving all spirits residing within a much appreciated wail of happiness. Even the rivers of the dead were sparkling, little waves dancing at the slightest movement, and Hange leapt in joy as she crossed Styx in her ferry, waving her scythe about as she waved at the souls grasping onto the edge of her boat.

Everywhere seemed to be the same. Wherever Eren walked, life would follow his every waking step, draping everything in a burst of hope. Death itself couldn’t touch the hunter, and that news spread far and wide, and soon, he became the underworld’s most favorite and cherished resident.

All the while, Levi always walked in front of him, a small frown adorning his face as always as he glanced back at Eren every now and then, as though to assure himself that the Eren walking behind him was real and in the flesh. Gray eyes darting back in front of him once more, he realized just how much of a contrast they were.

Eren brought life and hope and happiness wherever he walked, and Levi brought the exact opposite wherever he stepped his bare feet on the ground.

The god heard the soft footfalls behind him stop, and he turned around to see the hunter broadly smiling back at him, as though nothing short of despair and death had clung around him.

The mortal was an epitome of pureness, one that Levi didn’t dare to taint—though, his tendrils of black mist seemed to say otherwise. For with every movement that Eren made, swirls of that black smoke would dance around Eren, and the mortal would smile and tell Levi it was a nice parting gift of sorts.

And Levi would clench his jaw and refrain from speaking out words that he might later regret.

It had been three months since Eren was returned to life, yet here he was, still staying in the realm of the dead, happily following Levi along wherever he went. Their days passed by like that, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

It was Levi’s breath of fresh air. Every time Eren would follow him, he knew he wasn’t just spreading despair and negativity. He was spreading energy and sanguineness, something that never once existed in the underworld—and it was all with the help of one lively mortal.

“My time here is coming to an end, Levi,” Eren mumbled almost inaudibly. And Levi’s ears drooped at the words, his cold, cold heart sinking with every intake of unneeded air. The god knew it would all come to a grinding halt one day. Eren was now back to being the mortal that he was, and a mortal had no place in the world of the dead.

A small chip of his slowly flaking mask melted away with a lone tear that dripped from his eyes, and Eren, ever observant of him, couldn’t help but embrace the lamenting god.

The god wanted him to stay. Say just a few words, and the mortal might reconsider, he thought.

“I must return, now that I am alive,” Eren mumbled on his smoke-clad chest, willing away the choked sob that was bubbling from his throat.

Levi couldn’t say the words he really wanted to say.

“Return to me. Promise me you will.”

Eren closed his eyes, and with a chaste kiss on his lips, he breathed.

“I will.”

* * *

The Fates watched the god and the mortal converse through one of the seams, yet the three of them were looking far too interested in the vast amounts of flowering plants and life forms that Eren left behind.

A ghost of a smile flitted by Annie’s lips. Reiner’s eyes almost twinkled at the sight of life flowing around Eren. And Bertolt, silent and apprehensive Bertolt, smiled appreciatively at the small smile on Annie’s face.

“All we want is a nice place to live in. Only that, and nothing more,” Bertolt mumbled to himself as he looked at a grinning Eren through the seam.

* * *

Eren returned to earth shortly after he had said his farewells to the inhabitants of the underworld, and the Cerberus, who have grown fond of the young hunter, have taken it to heart that they should accompany him and the king up to the gates of the underworld, where the realm of the dead stopped. Hange, too, volunteered to give the hunter a final ride on the ferry she had recently named “Kynigós”, which was Greek for “hunter”. And she had cried and hugged Eren throughout the whole ride as she steered the ferry, ignoring Levi’s warnings to let the mortal go.

Once Eren stepped out of the realm of the underworld, he would be saying goodbye to the death god that he so loved.

And so with a final, lingering kiss on the death god’s lips, Eren had bidden him farewell.

Now, Eren opened his eyes, and he was back to the fields of Enna, lying on the Golden Tree, where he had first met the god of death.

It was as though nothing happened at all. Everything remained the same—the fields of Enna was the same as it was since the last time he remembered.

Memories rushed through his mind as he looked at a thin tendril of black smoke that twirled playfully around his forefinger. Everything he had experienced for the past two years seemed so long ago now. Almost like a very long dream.

He closed his eyes, and a whimper passed through his lips as he recalled the days and the nights he spent with the enigmatic god—those moments have always been the highlight of his ghostly life.

Even if he had left the realm of the dead, he knew very well that he wouldn’t be free from the immortal’s grasp.

A tear slid from his eye, laughing bitterly as he buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

“All I want is a place to live with him. Only that and nothing more…”

He had been granted another life, and he should be glad, and yet—

“Why do I feel even emptier now than when I was dead...?”

* * *

From the depths of the underworld, Levi stood silently still in front of his chaise lounge, gray eyes seeming almost dead to the world once more.

Once again, the small piece of happiness he so cherished was cruelly taken away from him.

He heavily fell to his knees, slumping to the stoned ground. And he lied there for what seemed an eternity, with only his veil of smoke keeping him company for the rest of the night.

* * *

 


	6. Chapter 6

The fields of Enna remained as ethereal and lively as it was since Eren’s untimely death. Carla told him that she couldn’t dare to touch the fields with the coldness of winter, so she had let it be as she mourned for him. Other fields were draped in coldness and desolation, yet Enna remained the same.

After Eren’s resurrection, spring had been more than welcomed in all of Greece. Trees that bore the tastiest of fruits were climbed by laughing children once more, vegetation flourished the land, people were now offering their thanks to the temples as flora and fauna danced to the cold winds—

—and Carla wasted no time in making a feast for her only child. There, in the fields of Enna, a small gathering was held by Eren’s (and Carla’s) closest friends. One of them, the hunting goddess Mikasa, had almost choked the life out of the newly-revived hunter, saying things like she had missed the mortal too much. And it was only through a wildly flailing Sasha—who had been ceaselessly drinking all the ambrosia that Carla had—that Mikasa had finally let go of Eren with an apologetic smile.

And when everything was said and done, Carla made it a task to lecture Eren about the dangers of lurking with anyone who seemed suspicious, even more so now that they knew that someone killed him out of envy and grudge.

The sudden clipped tone of his mother made Eren tight-lipped. And Sasha the messenger, ever perceptive, gulped down the last of the bread that she had bought from a mortal woman in one of the markets in Thebes. And Pixis’s messenger slightly moved away from where she sat, the blades of grass ruffling her beige lacerna as she almost whined upon seeing Eren’s ghastly expression.

“I told you many times Levi has nothing to do with my death—in fact! He is the reason why I’m here now!” Eren now stood up, arms wildly gesturing about every single thing his mother had said about blaming the death god for Eren’s death. “Just because he’s the god of Death doesn’t mean that I died because of him!” His voice took up a higher notch when Mikasa interfered that the likes of Levi should be locked up with the Titans that were trapped below—

“He is not like that!” Eren defended, his face pale as he tried to tell them that Levi was the—“reason that I’m alive now! Why can’t you all see that!”

In his fit of rage, he threw the first thing his hand touched—an apple—straight to Mikasa’s forehead. And he ran away, ignoring the furious yells of Carla calling back to him.

“Why, the nerve of that—! Mikasa, are you all right?” And Carla inspected the damage her son had done to the huntress’s brow, frowning upon seeing Mikasa’s pale skin turn red.

Mikasa waved her off, telling Carla she was fine, yet Carla was not convinced, and told her that she will scold her son later on. The elder goddess turned at a still internally-panicking Sasha, who had another bun in her mouth, and told her to go find her son.

“Tell Eren he needs to go back here now or I’ll see to it he’ll never hunt ever aga—”

“Please, don’t do that to him,” Mikasa pleaded, her brows furrowed and her expression filled with worry as she held Carla’s arm. “Eren—he is still recovering from his recent death and...” She looked away, biting her lips, “He needs to recover from his recent departure from that thing.” She let out her last words as a pained grumble, not liking the thought of trying to say the death god’s name on her lips.

* * *

The underworld mourned for Eren’s resurrection. Ironic, it was—mourning for one’s state of being alive once more. The day the tearful Eren left was also the day that every blooming thing in the realm of the dead died.

The smell of lifeless flowers and foliage were littered all of the underworld, making everything look even more depressing than it was before Eren had resided there.

Though nothing could be even more depressing than seeing the god of death himself walking aimlessly as he scoured the realms of Erebus with an air of emptiness and listlessness.

“He has been like this for weeks now. All blank and unresponsive to anyone unless someone mentions Eren. The other day though, he was snapping at the souls he saw in the leader’s ferry like a frustrated madman. He must have seen something that triggered his memories in first seeing Eren in the boat. Plus, the king threw the leader’s scythe in the sea of souls and now she has to get another one from Keith,” whispered Gunther to a worried Petra. The two of them have been keeping tabs on Levi, changing shifts with Eld and Oluo from time to time. The four of them couldn’t bear to see their king crumbling everyday, who knew what he might do if depression sank its teeth to his core?

Petra only nodded, and walked slowly beside Gunther, making sure they were a good three meters away from the death god. She looked behind her, and noted that everywhere the god went, death would follow. She frowned.

“Even the flowers that Eren helped to bloom are now dead.”

“Hush. Don’t let him hear you say his name. The king is still out of himself.”

And Petra merely bit her lip, observing a distraught Levi from afar.

* * *

“—and this is what happens when that mortal is away.”

Reiner glared at everything his eyes laid upon. He was standing on top of a large rock just outside their dwelling, brows curled downwards and lips formed in a seemingly permanent frown. Everything he looked at was decked in a shade of death. Crisp and withered leaves and petals flew with the arid air, making everything seem suffocating.

He tugged on his paenula, not liking the way it clung to his unfeeling skin. “Is this how summer feels?” he wondered out loud. Being stuck in the underworld for as long as he could remember, he had no knowledge of the world above—the seasons, the way the cool winds kissed one’s face, the burst of happiness upon seeing a new life form—

All he knew was that he was the determiner of the length of people’s lives. How long they would live, and how they should live their lives.

“Thinking of things that could have been?”

Reiner turned around, eyes large and wide, and he calmed down when he saw Bertolt coming up to him.

“There are things that even we can’t control,” mumbled the blond, looking away from the cutter of life. “This is why we need that mortal. So even the underworld would be given even a sliver of what little life Eren’s power had to offer. Something to make the spirits happy. Something to make _us_ happy.”

“And that’s why the plan should continue as it is,” Annie commented, appearing behind Reiner out of thin air. “Eren would be out of our grasp if that guard dog couldn’t do it.”

“Do you think she could do it, though?” Bertolt asked, looking around nervously, fidgeting, as though anyone might hear their private conversation.

Annie huffed, crossing her arms as she regarded a dead flower with a passive gaze. “She would. And she must. I know she’s having a hard time deciding if she should do it. But...” She trailed off, and the smallest trace of a smile graced her lips as she glanced at Bertolt. “You know the answer already, right? Being the seer of the future and all.”

Bertolt scratched his cheek, awkwardly looked away, and said nothing more.

* * *

Annie observed Petra daily. Gauging to see if today was the day that the guard would do her assigned task.

And Petra would only look around meekly, trying to mask her apprehension when the other three guards would ask her what was wrong—she had been fidgeting restlessly, after all. And sweet, kind Petra would wave them off, saying it was nothing, and she only needed a little time to herself, saying things such as she missed Eren’s presence. Which was partly true.

And she would go away from them, going to the rivers of Acheron to collect herself, and Annie would meet her there.

And Petra’s response would always be the same: “Please give me more time. The king is still hurting from Eren’s departure.”

And Annie’s response would always be a clipped, “When the time is right, no matter what, you must do it. And you will do it. For you and for your King.” And the spinner of life would always disappear right before Petra could ask her when the right time was.

All the while, Gunther would secretly track Petra down, ears on alert on anything that might lead to the reason why Petra was so distraught lately—and he would find out nothing. He would go back to the gates, to his station, and wait for Petra there, making sure no one other than him knew what Petra was up to.

He still contemplated if he should tell his king...

* * *

She was restless, blinking every now and then. She was not the calm and composed Petra that Gunther was used to. This was a different Petra, one that seemed to be twitchy and overly cautious around her, and it made Gunther uneasy.

“Petra, do you have a minute?”

The question that had been eating at Gunther for the past few months had finally made itself known, and Petra, who was acting like her cheerful self for once, merely shrugged and smiled, nodding as Gunther looked back at Eld and Oluo, who were busy discussing something at the gates.

“It won’t take long.” He reassured her with a barely there smile. And with that, they silently slid away from the rest of the Cerberus.

“What do you want to talk about?” Petra asked timidly as they walked near some of the cliffs in Erebus, yet Gunther knew all too well that behind her smiling façade was a face full of nervousness.

“I once heard you talking with one of the Fates inside the throne room while I was outside on guard duty. Is it something that the king should know?”

Petra paled, her face looking like a deer caught by a predator.

Her lips trembled, eyes wide and arms flying to his shoulders as she babbled out her words, “I-I don’t—” Wide eyes looked at Gunther’s unamused expression, and she bit back her previous words. “P-please don’t tell the king—! I promised not to tell him!”

Gunther stood still, his face looking grim as Petra bit her lip, her expression almost crying.

It was long before he spoke up, trying to find the proper words to say to the babbling mess of a sentinel. “Is it that important that you can’t even tell the king? Whom we owe everything?”

Her whole frame shook, and she shut her eyes closed, looking down in shame. “I cannot tell, I cannot tell,” she said.

And Gunther suddenly didn’t know what to do—remain loyal to his king, or remain loyal to his friend?

The moment he entered the underworld as a lost spirit, Levi had found him and saved him from being taken into the depths of Tartarus, and since then, he had pledged to stay loyal to Levi—up to his dying breath, he would stay loyal to him. There would be no questions asked when the king would give orders—he would follow them wholeheartedly, and he would kill anyone who would dare betray the king.

His fingers slowly slid to his back, touching the tip of his spear—

Petra suddenly snapped her head to him, her expression resolute, determined, as her trembling lips mustered out a shaky string of words—

Petra had always been one of his very few comrades.

“It is for the sake of everyone—!”

Petra had always been there for the people she considered her friends.   
  
“If all happens according to her plan, we’ll all have a chance of happiness!”

Gunther stilled his turbulent thoughts—

“Please understand…!”

—and in that moment, he finally decided what to do.

* * *

Eren threw the fifth stone he found into the pond, it was his safest way to vent out some steam. With brows furrowed, he watched the stone hop into the water, later sinking when its hopping ceased, feeling a bit of satisfaction upon hearing the plopping of the stone in the water.

His mother had forbade him to meet with the death god—and since then, Eren hadn’t gone back home.

It had been a week.

He threw another stone and watched it plop in the water. And his chest heaved with hurt as he turned to kicking the nearby stones instead, yowling in pain when a rather heavy rock stubbed his toe.

Cursing, he settled for sitting on top of the rock that he just kicked, sulking at anything of everything.

The fields of Enna have never been the same since he met the death god, and now his mother had suddenly swooped in and told him that he couldn’t meet the immortal in fear of something happening to him again.

And just like that, the fields he once knew to be his outlet in expressing his anger through hunting suddenly became a cage—

“He didn’t even do anything to hurt me,” mumbled the hunter, sinking his chin to his knees even further as he recalled his mother’s words, mindlessly pinching his big toe as he did so. Even Mikasa had joined in on his mother’s decision, and now he felt alone.

“I want to see him...” he mumbled to a snail passing by. Looking at his fingers, he realized he could make the black smoke appear and disappear on his body. It never dawned on him that he was doing it unconsciously. He studied the wisps of black mist coiling around his digits. Eren never really had the time to ask Levi why or how he passed on the smoke to him—or how it appeared around him whenever he thought of the death god. It is proof that I have a claim on you, the god once said. And Eren, an innocent that he was when it came to relations, never truly understood what the stern-faced Levi meant.

A shuffle from behind the bushes startled Eren, and trusting his hunter instincts, he slowly drew an arrow from his back, placing it on the bow as he aimed at the shuffling shrubbery.

Drawing his bow taut, his fingers twitched, waiting for the moment to release his arrow—

—and a little black cat appeared from behind the bushes, shaking its coat now matted with loose foliage on its fur.

Eren lowered his bow and arrow, placing them on the ground, and he silently watched as the cat trotted up to him, large eyes looking at him expectantly as it sat down with its tail swaying lightly.

The hunter jolted when the feline slowly crawled on his lap, making sure to bury its tiny claws with each step, and it purred on his chest, looking at him expectantly once more.

Then it dawned on him. That sleek black fur dotted with tiny leaves. Those slitted steel-gray eyes. Those tiny claws intent on pushing down on his skin—

Looking around to see if the coast was clear, he beamed at the cat, petting it on the head as he patted its nose, willing away the urge to hug the little animal.

“Ah, you came for me, little one?” His question masked the underlying excitement in his voice.

The feline pawed on Eren’s forefinger and it bit him, though it didn’t faze the hunter the slightest.

The cat scratched on a spot near Eren’s left chest, and the hunter beamed.

“I miss you, too.”

The cat pawed higher on his body, using his shoulder as a leverage, the feline purred in Eren’s ear. To anyone who might pass by, one would see a young man fawning over an animal, on how adorable it was, or on how warm it was against the human skin.

But to Eren, the purring in his ear resembled words. Words that were spoken by an individual he knew all too well.

The hunter stood up, still cradling the feline in his arms, nudging its ears every now and then as he walked away from the pond, and made his way towards the Golden Tree that lied in the middle of the fields of Enna. Once there, he scanned the area once more, as though searching for something amongst the vast sea of flowers. He walked towards some strangely placed flowers—narcissus, Eren thought with a frown—growing on the bark of a looming cypress tree.

“Quite a fitting place to make the flowers grow, eh?” he said to the cat with a smile. Cypresses have always represented eternal death, and narcissi have always symbolized eternal sleep. Both have the meaning of death, and Eren almost chuckled at the arrangements. He took in a deep breath and looked around him once more. Seeing that no one was there, he pecked the cat on the nose and nuzzled it.

He plucked a stem of a dewed narcissus, smiling as black smoke enveloped his whole form, draping him possessively as the ground beneath his feet slowly crumbled.

Eren merely smiled at the oddity of it all, and cradled the purring feline close to his torso as his feet welcomed the ground that was steadily swallowing him whole.

All the while, he clutched onto the stem of narcissus he just plucked, and he looked at the sky.

* * *

A cloaked figure stood near the entrance of the underworld, determination set in those amber eyes as fists clenched and unclenched. Warm air ghosted over tangerine locks, making the figure appear as young as ever.

“Are you positive this will help everyone?” A voice behind the cloaked figure was heard.

“Positive. If not, then you are free to kill me for deceiving him.”

Those amber eyes burned straight at black ones, and Gunther could do nothing as Petra waited for a certain someone’s return.

* * *

There was no message to relay to Pixis today.

Stray feathers from a set of white wings fluttered along with the messenger that spun joyfully in the air.

The fields of Enna remained as peaceful as always, and Sasha, having just eaten a large amount of food from a kind fisherman near the Aegean Sea, decided to simply fly around the sky, idly spending her time as she appreciated the works of man from above. She had flown over the temples, the markets, the lakes, the fields—

She stopped flying midair, oddly curious about something that shouldn’t be standing in the fields that Carla so meticulously created for her son.

There, standing just a few meters away from the Golden Tree that Carla deemed as sacred, was a cypress. A large, scary-looking cypress. Cypresses never belonged to anything that Carla created. They symbolized death, and Carla symbolized life. And it wasn’t the size of the tree that made Sasha curious. It was the leaves. Such leaves of the cypress were usually pine green in hue, yet this one had pitch black ones, and it seemed to emit an almost fearsome aura, with those spindly branches hooking heavenwards with its dark foliage, and those wide and sweeping roots were heavily buried within Carla’s sacred ground—

Sasha, in her rare moment of bravery, decided to fly down on the fields, smiling upon reaching plain ground as she tapped the soles of her winged sandals on the grass.

Walking slowly over to the strange tree, she noticed a lone narcissus swaying in the wind. The flower itself was rooted in the bark, its petals dewed and fresh.

She looked down on the large roots and hummed.

A withered narcissus laid upon the damp grass, the edges of the stem seemed to be plucked out.

Sasha picked it up, and the smallest trail of black smoke seeped from the flower, and it burned her skin.

Yelping, she immediately let go of it, cradling her tingling hand as she glared at the harmful flower. The narcissus fell to the ground, and Sasha noted that the grass around it was slowly turning brown.

She hastily looked around her, searching for any sign of who might trespass the fields of Enna. Finding none, she prodded at the flower once more, this time with her sandals, and she yowled as she felt her foot being singed.

Spreading out her wings, she immediately flew away from the dangerous flower, sparing the looming cypress tree one final glance before she made her way to Carla.

At the moment, Carla was on the outskirts of the meadows, tendering to a wild deer that Eren had taking a liking of shortly after his revival. She had yet to see her child, but she knew that Eren was well despite his rebellious nature.

She fed the deer, patting its head as she stood, and upon hearing a strangled wail from the heavens, she looked up, surprise hidden behind brown eyes as she saw Sasha rapidly approaching with terror written on her face.

Hearing the sound of furiously flapping wings and frantic and incoherent wails, the deer made a run for it, leaving Carla alone.

Sasha made it to ground safely, and upon seeing the goddess, she immediately ran up to Carla and clutched her shoulders.

“He was here! He was here!” Sasha yelled, and Carla, still not knowing what was going on, could only shake her head at the messenger, wordlessly telling her she didn’t understand her words.

And so Sasha let out another yell and a furious shake on her shoulders.

“The death god! He was here! And he took Eren with him!”

* * *

Blackness draped the entrance of the underworld, yet as soon as a certain mortal had draped his body on the cold stone ground, everything seemed to brighten up, slowly bathing everything in full color.

The void seemed to undergo a drastic change, and the hollow feeling of cold draft seemed to die down, it being replaced by a gentle, soothing breeze.

Gray eyes looked around, and for a moment, he almost smiled. Almost.

The lump of flesh in the death god’s arms stirred, and the moment the mortal opened his green eyes, tears flooded as Eren stared at the face of the being he had been longing to see since his return to earth.

Words weren’t spoken as the hunter wrapped his arms around the death god’s neck, the latter reciprocating just as much.

The feeling of the god’s bare skin on the hunter’s clothed form sent shivers down Eren’s spine.

He had been longing for the immortal’s touch.

Though Eren had an inkling as to where he was now, all he muttered to those elongated ears was a breathless, “I’m home.” And the masked god could only reply with a barely audible hum as wisps of smoke draped their bodies, burying his nose in the crook of the hunter’s neck as the mortal gasped. Eren ignored the feeling of the cold iron on his skin. Instead, he widely smiled—the brightest smile he had in a long while since his resurrection—and Levi pressed his lips to the hunter’s ear.

“Welcome home.”

* * *

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

As ordered by a furious Carla, various nymphs flocked the land, searching high and low for any indication of Eren’s vanished trace. A composed-looking Mikasa and a frantic Sasha also helped the desperate mother. Another god, namely, Armin the god of wisdom, had coaxed the dryads slumbering in the forests, to help with the search. He had known Carla as a benevolent goddess, and her son, a brash young man. He knew both of them well, and it moved him to help the weeping goddess.

The leimoniads and the auloniads searched the meadows and the fields respectively, and one anthousai, named Charle, approached Armin with fastidiousness, telling him of what she found.

“I found these near one of the lakes in the navel of Sicily—a flaring bow and some odd arrows. Not something a mortal would use everyday.”

Armin took the items from the nymph’s tiny hands, and inspected the strange weapon. The arrows were red-tipped and appeared to be emitting little dancing flames of red and black, and upon touching one of them, it singed his hand. Wincing, he looked at the bow, which was covered in a thin black mist.

Nodding his thanks to the nymph, he flew and went to Carla, telling her of his findings.

“These are my son’s!” she exclaimed. “Where did you find these?” And to this, Armin bit his lip, nervousness creeping to his voice.

“Near one of the ponds in Enna, says one of the nymphs. She was the one who found it and relayed those to me.”

Carla nodded, and tried not to weep for the disappearance of her son. “These arrows used to be only tinged with red, but ever since he came back from that place, there was always this small trace of black mist on whatever his hands touched. Life still flows from my son’s hands, but there’s also this hint of sadness—something not present to him before.” Armin studied Carla’s expression, that turning into bubbling rage, “When I find him, I will tear him limb to limb and feed him to the Titans below.” The blond mindlessly scratched his bare arm and looked away upon hearing Carla’s plan for Levi, and he winced.

Armin gulped and bit his tongue and reigned in his thoughts. He couldn’t dare remind her that Levi was a fearless immortal, and what he deemed as his, will always remain his.

* * *

“Everything is the same, I see,” commented the hunter as he observed the king’s throne room. “Though it was different when I was a ghost, haha—everything looked so drab and gloomy back then. And then I returned to life and suddenly there’s this burst of color.” He beamed at the god, twirling around the stoic immortal.

“Even my throne looks kind of alive. There’s moss and some vines there, I see,” Levi observed collectedly as he fought back a little smile. Here was the mortal who turned his life upside-down, and he had no regrets in taking him back.

“It’s nicer than the sad lump of bones you call a throne, it always looks too hard to sit on—not that I tried. Those poor human bones, squashed by you and your backside,” he joked, hugging him from behind and ruffling the god’s black hair with his cheek. He missed the physical contact he had with the immortal, and now he was going to take every single chance he could get to touch Levi.

The smaller being merely huffed as he crossed his arms, letting the mortal do as he pleased. He may not show it through actions as much as the hunter, but he truly missed the mortal, and the smallest touch on Eren’s arms was proof of that—and it was more than enough for the teal-eyed male.

“I miss you, Little Death,” he mumbled in his twitchy ears, and Eren loved the way that Levi stifled a groan. Eren laughed, and scooted away from him. “Say, Levi. The Cerberus really missed me, huh? Petra, especially. I saw her running up to me the moment I appeared at the entrance.”

Levi scoffed, glancing upwards at the hunter with one raised eyebrow, “Don’t be cocky, brat. They don’t miss you as much as this sad old god d—”

Levi didn’t even get to finish his sentence, as he was smothered by an overly happy Eren.

“I knew you’d admit it soon enough!” Eren cooed, hugging and lifting him just a little bit as he laughed.

The god struggled halfheartedly in Eren’s surprisingly strong grasp, and he killed the dangerous thoughts crossing his mind.

His smoke-clad body did little to fend away the enthusiastic hunter. If Levi looked closely, he couldn’t tell whether Eren was aware of him being stark naked beneath all the smoke or he knew it all along and was just ignoring—

The door to the throne room suddenly flew open, revealing the frantic Cerberus and an utterly hyper and squealing ferrywoman that was now bounding towards Eren and Levi in full spee—

“Ereeen!” she shrilled, instantly wrapping her arms around the startled hunter, and said hunter inadvertently let go of Levi, the latter now glaring daggers at the gondolier that was now ceaselessly twirling Eren around the room. “ErenErenErenEreeen! I missed you!”

Levi’s eyes twitched at the display, his expression torn between ‘I should be the one in there!’ and ‘Hange you stupid sawdust for brains can’t you read the damn mood!’

Eren managed to let out a choked laugh as he felt his bones being squished, “I—hah—missed you too, Leader—agh—!”

She guffawed at his words, and finally let go of him with a hearty slap on his back as he turned to the twitching god, “Levi! He said he missed me!”

“Yeah, yeah. He missed you. Now let go of him already, you fool.”

She let out a long and dragging whine, shaking her head as she hugged and nuzzled Eren once more, “But Eren here is so warm! Literally! (Unlike you.)”

Levi scoffed, crossing his arms as he tapped his bare foot, “I’ll have you know I can be warm, too. Not like I’ll show it to you, you ass.”

Hange giggled, and leaned close to Eren’s ear, whispering, “In Levi-speak, it means he can also have emotions—he just won’t show it to me—ah!”

“I can hear that, piss-face.”

“You didn’t have to singe me with that smoke of yours—gah! Levi, stop by the Judges’ room in a while to see the spirits—you’re—eek!—needed there!” And the ferrywoman finally scuttled away from Eren, laughing all the while, “See you soon when adorably teeny little Levi is done being grumpy, Eren!” With one last bellow of laughter, she was gone through the open doors right before Levi could retaliate with a fountain of fire on her face.

The Cerberus bowed and apologized to Levi, and they closed the doors once more.

“That stupid, good-for-the-dead, slimy little—Eren. Stop smothering me like a cat—”

“But you turned into a cat earlier and ‘smothered’ me too, remember? I’m just returning the favor.”

Levi sighed, and let Eren do as he pleased.

From the other side of the doors, the Cerberus was stifling their laughter.

* * *

Erwin looked at Eren with a toothy grin. Decked in his usual golden armor from head to toe, one might think he looked like a golden knight ready to save anyone who might be in distress—not that he’d actually save Levi who currently looked torn between distressed and pleased. The blond silently observed Eren as he fawned over a grumbling Levi, both were sitting far in front of him—Levi’s orders, Erwin didn’t dare to question it. They were near the gates of Tartarus, discussing little to nothing about everything—a friendly visit of sorts, as Erwin told the death god.

For the past two years, the war god had heard amusing stories about a certain mortal hunter who had somehow managed to enrapture a certain grumpy god’s ice-cold and almost non-existent heart—all of them he had heard from a lively and boisterous ferrywoman.

He also noticed that the god’s mask was not how it used to be. Before, it used to cover almost all of his head, resembling more like a helmet more than a mask, but now—almost everything, save for his nose, temples and cheekbones, could be seen.

The god of war could almost say that Levi’s defenses were literally crumbling under Eren’s presence.

“This is quite a huge development,” Erwin quipped as he saw Levi scowl. The god of war might not be able to see Levi’s face, but he was sure that the stoic god was fighting back a smirk as Eren loosely draped his arms around Levi’s shoulders, nuzzling his horns affectionately as he did so.

“Don’t even start, Erwin,” Levi hissed, pressing his cheek on the heel of his palm as he grumbled something incoherent under his breath. He glared at a smirking Erwin, and an exasperated sigh slipped past his lips as he felt the hunter’s cheek rubbing against his mask. “Eren. Stop being a leech.”

Yet, Eren’s response was a keen whine, hugging him tightly from behind as he let out a screechy, “No.”

Levi growled, and he let Eren be.

All the while, Erwin looked away, stifling a chuckle from the display.

* * *

A few days slipped by, and Levi slowly returned to his grumpy, yet not-so-grumpy self. Eren was back, and the god’s life somehow returned in peace.

“Here, another wreath on your head,” Eren beamed, putting a wreath of daffodils on Levi, liking the way the tips of the flowers made the god’s pointed ears twitch like a cat’s.

Levi closed his eyes as Eren placed a kiss on his brow. “I am happy,” the mortal breathed, and Levi touched him on the arm, careful to avoid his talons on the hunter’s fragile flesh, and Eren’s smile broadened.

Levi glanced around them, and the smallest of smiles graced his thin lips.

All around them, flowers of all kinds and fresh greenery flourished.

And they were standing in what seemingly used to be the middle of the deserted plains of Erebus.

“I need to return tomorrow. First thing in the morning,” Eren said lamentably. “The flow of time here is different from the world above.”

Levi’s face scrunched in distaste, not really wanting to hear the truth. From Eren’s eyes, he could see the smallest hints of the god’s mask flaking away as he spoke. “Ah. One day here is equivalent to one week on earth. And you’ve been here for four days already.” He casted Eren a sidelong glance, “Heh, I can sense your mother flipping out again. She must be hating me really bad for stealing away her only child from her, huh.”

“‘Hating you really bad’ is more likely an understatement, I think. ‘Wanting to kill you a thousand times over and over’ is probably more accurate.”

Levi chuckled, and ruffled Eren’s hair with carefully hidden amusement. “I really want to have you all for myself, little hunter. I’m selfish like that.” And he kissed his chin, because he wouldn’t admit that he was now standing on his tiptoes, his height being two inches smaller than the mortal.

Eren, noticing Levi’s masked discomfort, opted not to comment on the god’s lack of height.

“At least let’s make it last while we can, right?” Eren’s words were innocent at most, not really aware of how completely different it sounded to Levi’s perverted hearing.

“Ah, let’s make it last,” Levi mumbled, biting back an inappropriate retort that would render Eren speechless.

They returned to Levi’s quarters, and they spent time talking there. An occasional joke and rebuttal would occur between them, and, of course, Eren’s unfailing request on seeing Levi’s face would always be mentioned, and Levi would always refuse.

Dawn was already breaking when the two of them fell asleep on the chaise lounge.

Eren was draped on top of Levi, the smoke around them serving as their blankets. True, there was more of a will to fight against the temptation that was Levi, but Eren did his best.

Under his fingertips, Eren, in his slowly waking state, could feel the warmth seeping steadily from the god, could feel and hear the slow rise and fall of his beating heart, could feel the breath tickling over Eren’s locks, could feel the hardened and well-trained flesh that was firmly wrapped around him—

Eren snapped his eyes wide open, gasping. No, he couldn’t think of Levi that way, it was clear to the hunter that Levi had no intention of tainting his innocence—at least, that’s what Eren always thought.

Turquoise eyes glanced at the sleeping god. Careful not to wake him, he laid back on Levi’s torso, idly wondering if he was too heavy for him. Observing what little of the masked god’s expression was, however, Eren couldn’t really decipher if Levi was having a hard time breathing.

Trying to come up with nerves of steel, Eren did what suddenly crossed his mind.

He pecked the god’s lips, jaw, and chin, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses down Levi’s throat and collarbones. It was all he could do for now.

A stifled groan was heard from Levi, and Eren stilled, gauging his reaction to his ministrations.

Just then, the doors to the throne room creaked open, and Eren gasped as he glanced at it, heaving a sigh of relief when he saw it was a smiling Petra who had open the door.

Petra beckoned Eren over, nodding and looking stern when Eren merely blinked.

Eren pointed at Levi’s taloned hands, which were still coiled around his waist and back, and he saw Petra clamping her lips.

She moved her right arm slowly over her left, gesturing Eren to do the same.

He did as she wordlessly told him, trying not to let out a cry when one of Levi’s talons prickled his flesh.

He slowly slid away from the sleeping god, Eren’s eyes trained on him the whole time. When he did manage to pry himself away from Levi’s hold, Eren sighed deeply, and he smiled at Levi.

With one final peck on his lips, he trudged off to where Petra was.

* * *

Petra led Eren to one of the isolated parts of the underworld, where there was no soul in sight—save for three black birds that resembled ravens, each of them flying round and round above the sky. Eren, slightly oblivious to what Petra said that she was just showing him parts of the netherworld that Levi hadn’t shown him yet, decided it was a nice place to be.

Everywhere he stepped, fresh grass and flowers would grow. Dead trees would bloom like the start of spring, and Petra was in awe of it all.

“I have to be on duty now. I assume you know your way back?” she called out to Eren, who was looking at the vast dark sky. And when Eren nodded, Petra smiled and waved at him.

“I will return to him soon,” he called out, eyes still trained on the ravens. It didn’t escape Petra that Eren was unconsciously mentioning Levi, but she paid it no mind, and she left.

As though on instinct, Eren’s right hand slowly drifted to his back, trying to feel something that _wasn’t_ there.

“Oh,” he mumbled to himself, eyes widening. He looked around, searching for Petra, but he didn’t see her shadow anymore. “I left my…” He stared at his hands, then at the ravens. “I left my bow and arrows.”

One raven, one with startling blue eyes and a sheen coat, flew down to Eren, circling him like he was a piece of meat, and Eren couldn’t help but swat it away. Yet the raven was persistent, and bothered Eren to no end, until the hunter became the hunted.

He ran when all three ravens cawed and pecked and chased him down the vast void of the deserted plains, not paying thought to the amount of life he was giving to the barren ground with each hurried step.

All the while, the ravens squawked at the mortal, opening their beaks wider when they saw blood running down from the arm that Eren used for shielding himself. Eren screamed for them to stop, but it was to no avail.

They were just birds after all.

One raven flew down to the back of Eren’s knees, pecking it harshly, and the hunter yelled and tripped, falling down on the fresh grass face first.

He winced, hissing when he saw blood gushing from his knee. Glaring at the still squawking ravens, he raised his left hand to them, knowing well that he had a bit of Levi’s power. Billows of black smoke swirled from his being, and they coiled around the birds’ bodies, now cawing in a desperate attempt for them to be released.

Eren reluctantly let go of them when he felt his energy being drained, and he breathlessly watched them fly away as his vision suddenly became hazy—

The ravens cawed and flew to a small tree that bore the plumpest and freshest blooms of a certain fruit—

“I’m suddenly starving…” he weakly let out, weakly eyeing the red rinds of the fruit on the small tree. They looked so fleshy, and so _delicious_ —

Before he knew it, he was struggling, trying to stand up and reach out to one of those delectable fruits—

He didn’t know how it was, but since he was brought back to life, he never felt hunger whenever he visited the underworld. But now—

Mind-numbing hunger ate at his very core, the feeling of his intestines coiling and grumbling and seemed to be almost _clawing_ at him—!

Eren huffed, and felt his mouth almost watering at the sight of those damned ravens pecking and eating at some of the first fruits—

Fingertips yearned to reach out to one of the scarlet berries, his hand twitching at the tempting display that was the red skin of the fruit.

Heaving out the last of his strength, Eren finally grasped onto one pomegranate, clutching it tightly in his hand—

He let go of the tree’s trunk, letting out a grunt as he fell on his back, silently thankful for the grass that did little to cushion his fall. The height was not that high, but still, it ached.

Eren paid the smoke around him no heed as he briefly examined the tempting fruit, noting the way the ripened flesh was too malleable in between his rough fingers.

He gulped, and tried to let out a string of words around the smoke that was twisting around his breakable neck—yet the smoke did no harm, and Eren continued to eye the fruit in his hands like a pot of gold.

He opened it in half with shaky hands and fingers, breaking the skin open, revealing blood-red seeds and the fleshy white pulp. In his hindsight, he realized he didn’t know what he was doing anymore—it was unlike him—getting worked up over a piece of produce. Yet he opened his mouth, his teeth bared as he took a large bite out of the pomegranate—

—and the smoke around him vanished.

But Eren didn’t notice it at all.

He kept on biting and gnawing at the fruit like a famished creature, relishing the sarcotesta and the seeds, reveling in its sweet taste, completely ignoring the crimson juice that flowed from the fruit, to his mouth, to his hands, to his arms, to his elbows, to his wounded knee—

And Eren swallowed all that his teeth and mouth could take, heaving at the taste and feel of his hunger being fed—

Unbeknownst to him, the three ravens have stopped eating the fruits, and were regarding the hunter with morbid fascination, tilting their heads this way and that as Eren gasped and practically breathed in the fruit that was being hurriedly devoured by his hungry mouth.

The moment Eren finished eating the pomegranate, the ravens cawed with their red-stained beaks dripping to their breasts, their wings flapping as they flew towards the gloomy sky, leaving the hunter alone in the middle of the now green fields.

* * *

Petra ran as fast as she could from the fields of green, her breath heaving as she took one large leap to another.

She ran away from it all. From Eren. From the ravens.

From the Fates.

There was no turning back now.

* * *

“Oluo, where is Eren?”

Oluo jumped in his shock, biting his tongue in the process as he turned around and faced an irate-looking Levi who looked even _more_ irate than usual.

Eld and Gunther cautiously backed away from Oluo.

“H-he is away, s-sir.”

The distinctive _crack_ coming from Levi’s mask went noticed by the three guards, and right now, they were fearing for their lives.

“Yes, yes, I _know_ that, Oluo. What I want to know is _why_ is he away without my knowing?”

Eld decided to be helpful there and then, as Oluo was now close to having a heart attack from being questioned by the piercing stare of one scary death god. “Eren decided to have a walk earlier when you were sleeping, my King. He says it’s his final trip for today before returning to you right before noon.”

The impatient tapping of Levi’s foot was like the seconds left before all three guards were cut off from his sight. “It’s nearing noon—and I still see no Eren.” He looked around, his frown deepening, “And where the hell is Petra?”

Eld and Oluo looked at each other, at a loss of what to say. Gunther took a deep breath, his jaw clenched as he forced out the words from his suddenly dry throat.

“Petra is out guarding the rivers of Lethe today, my King,” he said, with no trace of fear in his voice. How he managed to keep his calm after being scrutinized by a glaring Levi was beyond Oluo’s comprehension.

Unknown to Eld and Oluo, however, Gunther was inwardly fearing for his life. Cold sweat slowly seeped from his brow, his whole body statuesque in front of the glowering god of death.

Eons seemed to pass when Gunther could finally breathe normally again. Levi had let out a clipped, “Is that so,” and he turned on his heel and walked away, not before muttering to himself. Something about finding Eren on his own.

And in that moment, Gunther almost broke down when he, the other guards, and Levi, saw Petra running towards them—

—her whole body littered with dust and scars.

* * *

 


	8. Chapter 8

“ _We’ll take it from here._ ”

Those were the words that Petra heard from a stern-faced Annie.

And that was the day that Eren returned to the underworld.

From the beginning to the end, since the day she had confronted them, she had followed the Fates’ every instruction.

‘Always keep watch on Eren. Never let him away from your sight. Always keep the seeds with you. Once he is back, alive, plant those seeds in the Forest of Groves, and they will bear fruit even in the driest of deserts. They will bear the sweetest of pomegranates. And you will make him eat them. One fruit is enough. How you will manage to make him eat it, well, that’s where we come in.’

Petra gasped as the tell-tale of flapping wings almost warned her from behind.

She had to run fast, blocking away the words that Annie had told her days before all of this mayhem.

‘Eren will not be able to resist the sight and taste of the fruit—for we created that tree. A tree that no mortal could ever resist.’

Petra shrieked as one of the ravens nipped and pulled harshly on her hair. She hit it with her spear, tearing off a bit of her hair in the process, and she ran as fast as her bare and blistered feet could take, not taking a moment’s time to spare the birds a glance, she let out a single, shrill scream.

The birds stilled, and Petra took it as her cue to wrap her battered cloak around her form.

With billows of smoke concealing her, the ravens cawed and shrieked—

—and Petra vanished into thin air.

* * *

 

“Petra, tell me where Eren is. Gunther told me he was with you.”

Levi’s words sliced her heart as she remained looking at the stone-cold floor, not daring to look at him in the eye. Sure, her battered body may have been bandaged up by Oluo and Eld, but she still wouldn’t be spared from the bubbling wrath of the death god.

“Petra. I asked you.”

She gulped, and for a moment, she could hear Oluo whispering behind her: “Ansswer the king.”

“I-I was attacked. By… harpies, Your Highness.” She gulped once more, and saw Levi’s foot tapping, tapping almost impatiently. And her eyes were stricken at the amount of black smoke that was filling the air.

Petra all but looked away from that tapping foot, knowing fully well that all eyes in the throne room were on her. She didn’t dare to think of what Levi might have looked like right now.

She had never once laid her eyes upon his real face, after all.

“Harpies, you say, hm? If you were attacked, then Eren must have been attacked as well. Where is he?”

The emotionless tone wasn’t lost on her, and she fumbled with her cloak, all torn and currently steaming, repairing itself with the hissing smoke.

“I-I lost him, Your Highness,” she breathed, gulping as her right shoulder twitched. “In the Forest of Groves, we—I got separated from him—”

“How many.”

The question caught her off-guard, and this time, her head snapped to the looming god, her eyes wide as she met his terrifyingly blank stare. He looked calm. Too calm. It was an eerie look on the god. One that spoke volumes on how he actually felt at the moment.

Her lower lip trembled at the sight of the thickening smoke around him, the dark mist swirling slowly around his petite yet intimidating form. She saw his big toe twitch just the slightest, and she felt her mouth dry.

“I don’t understa—”

“The harpies. How many.” He didn’t need to elaborate. He knew that she knew what he would do once he found out.

Petra rattled her mind. Her thoughts swirling with lies upon lies, stacked above the horrible truths. Her thoughts swimming in her last vision of Eren devouring the fruit of the dead with much voracity. Her eyes terrorized by the cawing and cackling of the ravens, their blood-red beaks mirroring Eren’s body littered with blood gushing from his knees, with the sweet juice flowing from his mouth and hands and elbows. There were no harpies. No harpies. But large and dark and scary ra—

“T-three, my King,” she finally let out with a squeaky rasp. She couldn’t dare to lie to him about certain things, no matter how much she forced herself to.

A hint of disbelief appeared on Levi’s masked face, a hint of one lone eyebrow raising beneath the cracks of the iron, and Levi’s lips almost curled in a cynical sneer.

“Three?” he asked lowly, a sardonic laugh escaping from that pale throat. “Just three harpies and you couldn’t even protect him? Hah. I thought you trained better. You three. Guard her. She is not to get out of here until I fetch Eren from the Groves.” He saw her flinch at the way he said his words, but he merely huffed. And with that, he turned away from her—and he hummed, eyeing her trembling form from the corner of his cold eyes.

“Oh, by the way. Gunther told me you were supposed to be guarding Lethe. The Forest of Groves is quite far from there. I wonder…” His sentence trailed off and he left, the hissing from his cape and the smoke showering the guards’ ears.

Gunther looked at Petra, who seemed to be on the verge of tears.

Levi _knew_. He knew.

Petra looked up at Gunther, whose face was almost as stoic as Levi’s. Yet from his wide eyes, she knew that he had made a slip-up. An inconsistency.

A _lie_.

She couldn’t blame Gunther. No. She would never blame anyone. She knew he was covering up for her, but—

—she didn’t think her plans thoroughly.

“I messed it up... I messed it up...!” she croaked, clutching onto her cloak as a sob tore its way to her throat.

Eld and Oluo looked at each other, both not knowing what to do.

* * *

 

Eren licked off the remnants of the pomegranate from his sticky skin, feeling more like a feline in his actions. He laughed at the thought, and for a moment, he felt energy returning to his body, and it made him crack a smile as he weakly stood up, wincing at the feel of his still numb knees. The blood had dried and caked on his skin, but he didn’t have the thought of trying to touch it. He let it be as he limped his way back to where Levi was probably pacing back and forth in his room, waiting for him to come back and tell him of his little misadventure for the day. He could almost see the worry beneath the masked face that he could only imagine in his mind.

Shaking his head to himself, he felt a twinge of guilt, not really wanting to be the reason for Levi’s troubles. So he tried to walk faster in his limping legs, cursing as he trained his eyes on the grassy fields ahead of him, paying no mind to the amount of life he had given to the barren lands. Paying no backward glance at the innocent-looking tree that housed the sole fruit that he had ever eaten in the underworld. Paying no attention to the ravens who were now hovering at a far distance away from the mortal, their piercing eyes dead-set on the pitiful Eren.

He licked what little of the fruit’s taste was left on his hands and arms as he walked, ignoring the fact that his current actions seemed a little too obscene—he idly noticed. He felt his hunger go away the moment he had finished eating the fruit, it being replaced by a full stomach. A piece of satisfaction. And Eren smiled at that. And he suckled his skin more even as the taste was already gone. Flicking his tongue this way and that from one hand to the other, he limped and walked and almost stumbled towards the rivers of Lethe, his smile broadening a bit as he finally heard the distant sound of the rushing black waters.

He coughed as he limped, his breathing becoming a bit ragged with each step his blistered and bloodied sandaled feet could take. With a sharp intake of breath, he choked—he choked on the arid air.

Eren looked around him. Grass and flowers still grew beneath his feet—

He looked at his arms, and willed the smoke that he was so accustomed to to escape his skin.

Nothing came. No matter how hard he tried to summon the familiar black smoke, nothing came.

Eren’s face paled.

* * *

 

Levi cursed and seethed as he levitated for the first time in a long while—it was all to see Eren’s apparent trail of life he left on the barren grounds of Erebus.

His heart ached at the thought that the hunter might be hurt—or worse, dead.

He clicked his tongue as he rose even higher in the dark sky.

“Troublesome harpies.”

* * *

 

Carla wept for the disappearance of her son. Going to Olympus once again proved to be painful on her part. She had been there on the day that Eren had been brought back to life. She had related to Pixis on how happy she was that her son was alive once more—and that she would never let him go out of her sight ever again. She had told him of how the season of spring had burst forth when she had finally embraced her son once more. She had told him of the days that were filled with joy, and she had told him of her son’s apparent change in behavior in the recent weeks. Eren’s sudden shift from happy to moody whenever he would see a blooming flower on the fields. Eren’s sudden desire of wanting to go to the Golden Tree more than often. Eren’s sudden words of wanting to see all of the world above—and below. Eren’s sudden outburst of wanting to see a certain god with steel-gray eyes and an iron mask. Eren’s sudden cries in the middle of the night.

She had told Pixis about her son’s dreams.

Of a sad, broken death god with the mysterious masked face. Of four loyal guardsmen. Of an eccentric and kind gondolier. Of crying souls in the rivers of the dead. Of the frightening Judges of the Dead. Of a hardworking blacksmith. Of a compassionate and golden goddess and her stern companion.

She had relayed all of Eren’s experiences to a thoughtful Pixis, all the while, she sobbed in the seat provided for her. The softness of the cloud-like cushions brought her no comfort and reassurance that her child was safe.

Pixis listened through it all, his attention undivided as Carla spewed her words about her lovely child. Her lovely child who was now probably being cruelly ripped apart by the souls and the Judges—

“Or maybe he is being loved by the death god you so despised.”

There it was again.

Carla looked at Pixis with fierce brown eyes, and for a moment, Pixis was suddenly reminded of the startling green eyes of a little child hunting in the woods, one that he had seen only once in his short time in visiting earth 13 years ago.

She remained silent as she regarded him with a harsh glare. Pixis almost laughed at the stark resemblance of Eren to her mother. A very striking resemblance indeed.

“Haven’t I told you before? Eren continued to befriend him even knowing fully well what Levi is.”

And Carla was at a loss for words, looking at Pixis through watery eyes.

“Haven’t it occurred to you that maybe, just maybe—Eren went to the underworld on his own accord? To meet up with the being that you so purposefully denied for your child?”

* * *

Levi let out curse after curse, after curse—hardened eyes flitting left and right in search for a certain troublesome yet very-hard-to-hate mortal. Eren’s traces where everywhere, and Levi didn’t know where to begin the hunt.

Forcing back another growl that had been itching its way to his throat for the past half hour, his teeth bared at the thought of the creatures that have laid their clutches on what he deemed as his. His guard and his mortal had been hurt, and now, all the harpies residing just outside the gates of Erebus were now branded in Levi’s mind.

Though, something was amiss.

Levi himself had told every single resident of the underworld that there would be places that each creature could and could not venture freely—the only exception being Eren, as he had given the mortal to roam liberally within the realm, aside from Tartarus.

And surely, he was sure that he had forbidden the harpies from entering the gates of Erebus.

Swallowing back another curse, he soared higher in the dark sky to search for the missing Eren, cringing at the smell and feel of the arid air. It reeked of Death—something that Levi will never get used to, and that was why he loathed levitating.

Pastures where everywhere, draping everything in that calming green that he so adored, and from where he was soaring, Levi could see a small dot on the ground near the rivers of Lethe, and, feeling a surge of hope, he dove straight to the moving dot, yelling out Eren’s name.

The distraught mortal didn’t move, however, even when Levi was now a few meters close to him. Levi called out to him once more, and yet the hunter still blankly stood there, looking at suspiciously red-stained and quivering hands.

“Eren?” Levi tried once more, and when a talon inched to the tip of his skin—

—Eren let out an ear-shattering scream.

Levi was taken aback, eyes widening just a fraction at the outburst, and for the first time since he had called out to him, Eren looked at the god with wide, fearful eyes, and a broken voice croaked from the red-stained lips.

“Levi, I think I did something wrong, I didn’t mean it but I—!”

And tears sprang forth from his eyes, hands quivering as Levi shook his head.

“Speak coherently. I don’t understand Eren.”

And Eren bit his lip, shaking his head furiously as his shoulders shook uncontrollably, and a hand coldly snaked its way to his toga, all the while clutching his clothes with the other.

He took out a malleable and globose fruit, bowing his head low as his digits slightly pierced the skin—and Levi felt his blood run cold as he looked at the bruised and battered pomegranate in the mortal’s hand.

“Eren, what—”

“I didn’t know, I didn’t know—! I didn’t know what came over me, it—I suddenly felt this... _rush_ of hunger when I saw it and I—oh, that smoke! That had always been there, right? It was for my protection, right? Right? That was the reason why I never went hungry in this world, right? And now I—”

Levi’s jaw tightened, his talons clenched as he tried to touch that wounded skin, comfort him for as long as he could—and Eren held back his tears as the tips of a claw singed his hair.

Here was a mortal, a _boy_ in the realm of the living, laying out the fruit of the dead to the god of death himself, holding it out to him with such innocence—untainted by the ways of corruption.

Here was an innocent, dangling the fruit of sin in front of Temptation himself.

And for Temptation, for Levi, it was too much to bear.

“Why did you do it...?” The voice was strained, and Eren, still averting the piercing stare of those gray eyes, suddenly felt smaller than the god in front of him.

“I didn’t know what came over me, Levi. It—I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t know what was happening and—” Eren choked back a sob, falling to the ground with a strangled cry, squeezing the pomegranate in his pasty hand as he tried to explain himself.

The sound of something crackling continuously fell on deaf ears.

“The smoke disappeared, I didn’t know when—I tried to—”

And he stopped when he saw the tiniest bits of iron falling to the grassy ground.

Gasping, Eren looked up with a muddled vision blocked by tears—

—and he felt the air leaving his lungs as he looked at the cracking mask of the god.

Bits and chunks of iron fell from the immortal’s face, and Eren could only stare at those now wide, steel eyes, the mortal’s mouth agape as he could see the god’s face slowly being unintentionally revealed to him.

Pale and marbled skin that had never been kissed by the sun’s grace. Chiseled jawline made into perfection. Thin and rosy lips. A sharp, upturned nose. Barely-visible under eye circles. Currently wide and fearful steel-gray eyes.

And those wide and fearful steel-gray eyes were looking at Eren, at his very soul, and Eren shrunk back, fighting back a whimper as Levi shook his head, disbelief written all over the visible part of his face.

And Levi stepped back, his mouth hanging open, void of words and thoughts and reassurance that everything will be fine—

Eren weakly stood up, letting go of the pomegranate that had ruined it all, forgetting it as it fell on the ground, bruised and forgotten. He was uncaring for the grass grazing his wounded knees, and he tried to catch up to the blankly retreating god. And he could see the god biting his lip as the look of pain washed over his face.

He took a step, swallowing back another cry as the retreating god shook his head at him repeatedly, and Eren almost stumbled when Levi turned his back on him.

The voice of the broken god echoed loudly in his ears—and Eren could only watch and cry as smoke filled his vision of a pained Levi, and those teal eyes could only make out the mouthed words.

“ _Never search for me again. I will kill you._ ”

And Eren wailed as he ran towards the smoke-clad god, unfeeling of the black mists that singed his skin and clothes, and right before he could yell and beg for forgiveness at something he didn’t mean to do, he saw a tear sliding down from Levi’s eyes.

And Eren’s heart sank when he heard those words in the midst of the hissing smoke.

“ _I’ve always wanted to free you from this place._ ”

And Levi vanished completely in front of the stunned Eren.

It was a long time before the words sunk in, and all he could do was stand there, watching the faint traces of smoke dissipating in the arid air.

He wanted to yell out, to ask Levi for forgiveness at something that he didn’t understand—

—and then it hit him. Like a ton of stones.

He once remembered, on the day that they met—something about Levi telling him the reason for wearing a mask.

“I can never show my face to anyone, for whoever would lay their mortal eyes on my face would surely die,” the death god had said that day.

And Eren felt very much like a child who had lost all hope at this moment, and his eyes trailed to where Levi had vanished into thin air, leaving him with nothing but the last sad trails of black smoke that singed his skin—something that never once happened before.

He pounded his fists to the ground in frustration, crying about the foolish deed he had done. He glared at the bruised pomegranate, and crushed it in his hands, fighting back the tears that refused to stop.

In his younger days, his mother often told him a story, one that involved the dangers in the underworld.

One must never eat any fruit or anything that could be considered edible within the realm of the dead—for you will be stuck there for eternity.

And Eren cried out, fingers turning bloody as he tore at his hair, spewing for Levi and Carla’s forgiveness.

All the while, a lone blue-eyed raven observed it all from afar, tilting its head this way and that, beady eyes looking at the bereaved hunter with such morbid curiosity.

Eren laid on the grass for what seemed like eons, his voice now raw and scratchy from screaming out—and he refused to get up even after that raven had perched on Eren’s back, cawing all the while.

“Are you happy now, you tempting thing?”

The raven flapped its wings as an answer, and it seemed mocking to Eren’s mind, and he laughed dryly. The tears weren’t falling anymore.

“I don’t know what you did, but I think you just won, Fowl.”

The raven moved its way to his nape, its little feet scratching Eren’s back as it did so. Eren could almost see that little head cocking and twitching in mock interest. Ignoring the pain in his nape, he could almost see that bill opening, its mouth almost smiling, if such a thing were true.

“Levi is not with me again... You planned all of this, didn’t you? Whoever you are...?”

The raven cawed, flapped its wings, and flew away. 

Tears flowed from his eyes once more.

* * *

Eld and Oluo were the ones that huddled over Petra the most, asking and telling her about things that could have been done to prevent such a thing. Oluo had lost his cool when he found out what she did, but a chastised word from Eld had the foul-mouthed guard shut his mouth.

Nevertheless, they still questioned her, their voices strained and their stares piercing at the kneeling guard.

“Why did you do it, Petra.”

“Petra, you sshould have told uss.”

And all the while, Petra shook her head, quiet tears dripping from her reddened face, refusing to tell them her reason until—

“There were no harpies in the fields, were there?” came the sudden intrusion from Levi, who had appeared out of nowhere. His voice reverberated in the stillness of the air as his tell-tale presence draped everything in horrid black, blanketing his body with the black mist. A ghoulish amount of smoke surrounded the throne room, and Petra buried her face in her hands as she heard the soft footfalls echoing louder behind her.

He repeated his question, his voice a notch higher than earlier, and the hissing smoke became even more apparent around Petra’s pitiful form, swirling around her dangerously, but not enough to scald her skin.

She only whimpered and sniffled.

“Petra—”

“It was my fault, my King!” came Gunther’s sharp retort, he didn’t dare look at the barely-masked god, and he clenched his eyes shut, prostrating in front of a narrow-eyed Levi as he explained himself. “I knew all of this and yet did nothing to stop her! I confronted her about this matter before and I let her do as she was told! I-I deserve the punishment of death, Your Highness—!”

“No, my King!” exclaimed Oluo as he, too, kneeled in front of Levi, averting his eyes from the almost-bare face. “I desserve death! I didn’t take note of my comrades’ actionss and became blind to all thiss madnesss! You had given me the task of looking over them, and I disobeyed it with my haughtinesss! I desserve death!” He knocked his head to the ground, ignoring the searing pain in his brow as he forced back tears of fear. “Please, sspare them—!”

“They don’t know what they’re saying, my King!” Eld yelled, and he bowed low to a silently snarling Levi, sweat now dripping from his brow as he feared the god whom he almost looked at in the face. Eld was more than prepared to die. “You had given me permission to note malicious actions and eradicate those who do so in this realm! And I blatantly disregarded that order! Please, spare them—and kill me instead!”

Levi stood in front of them, eyes boring into the prostrated forms of his sentinels. Talons clenched and unclenched as he gritted his teeth, and bits of his mask chipped further away. Hesitation was evident in those hardened eyes.

He heaved a deep breath, eyes now trained on the trembling Petra, who he was sure would be lipless by the time she had finished chewing her lip off. He could see her trying to be brave in the face of death.

Ah, but that wouldn’t do.

The fearful guards dared to glance up when they heard an unfamiliar sound. Surely, the sound of chuckling was the least of the sounds that Levi would make—

But there he was, standing with his barely shaking shoulders, trying to stifle a concealed laugh with a lopsided, barely-there smile, a smile that went noticed by the four guards.

They never thought they’d see the day.

“I was merely asking a question, you simpletons,” he said, his face now back to its normal, apathetic façade. “I wasn’t planning on killing her—or any of you, for that matter. I will never do such a thing.” And he rolled his eyes. A hand waved dismissively as he grunted at the sight of a suddenly bawling Oluo—Levi winced, disgusted upon seeing snot and tears melded together on the guard’s face. They were halted, however, by the sudden shift in Levi’s voice, it becoming foreboding and downright frightening.

“This will be the first and last time that you sad bunch will make this grave mistake. And I will warn you for the last damned time— _don’t drag Eren in your worthless shenanigans._ ”

All four of them dared to look up, eyes widening at Levi’s cracking façade.

And as though Oluo had gathered all his courage, he hissed and winced as he bit his snake-like tongue—and asked the question that had been eating at his lips the moment he had seen half of Levi’s face for the first time.

“My King, ssire—w-why could we ssee your face?”

* * *

Eren didn’t have the strength to stand, let alone sit up from the grass grazing his internally-battered and exhausted form, yet he forced himself to move despite his protesting body and weary heart.

Shallow breaths slipped past Eren’s parched lips, the sobs that wracked his body now slowing down to occasional jerk of shoulders.

He could still remember all the dreams that he told Levi—dreams that he wished would come true. Impossible dreams that he knew now will never be.

Wings to soar high above the sky—even higher than the sun. Wings that he wished to have to travel everything that nature could offer in its vast riches.

Freedom. He wanted it. Had always wanted it. Will always want it. Maybe even more than his want to always be with Levi, but—the god wasn’t by his side anymore.

The masked immortal was the sole reason why he had willingly crawled back to the underworld.

And Levi had left him.

And now the freedom that he so longed to have since he was a child was cruelly ripped to shreds. Mangled and killed brutally into bloodied ribbons without mercy by the clutches of the world he was staying in, by the world that his only love was staying in—

—and an odd sense of calm washed over Eren, blanketing his heart and mind of all emotions he had felt since he met the god.

Everything inside him suddenly felt so _cold_ and _numb_ —

He smiled and choked out a laugh at the sparkling river of oblivion, looking at the deep and sloshing black abyss fondly with tear-streaked eyes.

The coldness of his feet met the coldness of the river.

“The waters look so _inviting_ all of a sudden...”

* * *

 

Hange hummed and smiled as she rowed through the rivers today, occasionally looking at the groaning spirits behind her with a wide grin. She sailed her ferry through the river of souls, hushing the bereaved spirits from time to time.

From Styx to Acheron she had traveled today, and despite all the dull things she had seen—bones and groaning spirits were now becoming drab to her—she was intrigued when she saw something floating slowly towards the middle of the rivers of Lethe. And that something was clearly solid-looking to Hange. She hummed.

Aside from Hange’s ferry, there was surely no way that anything solid would last for more than a few seconds.

The spirits, always clamoring for anything tangible, would always try and devour those solids with their ghoulish hands within a minute. And the only thing they couldn’t touch was Hange’s ferryboat.

Adjusting her trifocals, she rowed towards the thing that floated in the waters, cursing and scolding and pushing away the souls that clung to her oar and the wafting lump.

Satisfied that no spirit would touch the tangible thing, Hange hauled it with her oar with a huff.

“Come—on!” She shrieked as she pulled it out of the waters, heaving when the dead weight crushed her.

She panted and wheezed as she rolled the cold thing off of her, and she threw her oar to one side to turn over the—

—seemingly dead-looking body of a cold Eren.

Hange shrieked out his name.

* * *

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Annie had once dreamed of living in the world above. And that was three lifetimes ago.

She dreamed of living in a world where sounds and sights of life were prevalent, where the most common thing around was being showered by the elements surrounding the earth—alive and breathing and _living_. It was the time that she dreamed of living in a world where vivid colors and mysterious creatures were abound, filling everything with vibrancy and mystery to the ever curious eyes. It was the time that she dreamed of residing within the human realm, to taste and to know what it would be like to have a mother and a father, to meet other people, or maybe even to fall in love and have children she could call her own. And those children would grow up and have children of their own. And she would see all of it with waning and yellowed eyes dulled by the cruel passage of time. Things that were considered normal in humankind.

But she was born a Fate, not a human. A Fate who had always weaved the barest threads of life between her adept fingers, spinning, twining, and making them into the perfect imperfection that the humans were—and a Fate always had no choice but to follow what was already mapped out by the stars, as it were.

And she created the seams that guided her to keep track of the people that were living on earth. And she was constantly weaving threads through it all as she looked through the hazy seams with longing blue eyes.

All the while, her dream of living in the human realm never died in her heart.

So when she had laid eyes upon a little child killing a couple of hares in the woods on one summer day, a little surge of hope sparked in her heart when that child accidentally touched the dead flowers surrounding the hares. And, why, those flowers bloomed to life before her very eyes!

She thought of how those magical hands would act once they were in the presence of the netherworld.

Having the child within the realm of the dead then became her dream.

And so she had sought after that child, watching the bundle of life everyday as he slowly grew up to be a fierce hunter in the woods of Enna. And as she longed for the hunter to grace his presence with life from the dead, she kept her fascination for the human a secret from her companions. She was sure she would be frowned upon if they knew. A mask of apathy she showed for everyone on earth remained her solace, a piece of her self-control, as it were. She thought she could fool all of underworld with her stoic stance.

But one of her companions could never be fooled.

Bertolt had always longed for Annie’s attention. Secretly pined for her even if he knew she would never reciprocate his unspoken feelings for her. He knew that she had her eyes set on the hunter. She had always been.

And Bertolt ignored it all—paid it no heed as he continued to shyly seek for even a sliver of her attention. The smiles that she rarely gave him, though, promised the tiniest bit of hope in his longing heart. Even as he knew she had her eyes inclined to an unknowing human’s acts, Bertolt remained patient, understanding, and uncomplaining to her wishes to have the hunter reside in the underworld for a period of time.

He just hoped that she would realize sooner that Hitch had long created an intervention within the mortal’s heart—long before Annie had set her sights on the mortal—one that would be the start of the chains of events that would soon lead to the change in all of the underworld.

And Annie had to go through seeing the mortal’s death twice before seeing that change fulfilled.

Bertolt smiled sadly as he looked at a blankly staring Annie standing in front of him. They were now back in their dwellings. And she had yet to speak since their flight from the Forest of Groves this morning, and he was growing unsteady with each passing moment.

Reiner squeezed Bertolt’s shoulder, silently telling him to leave her alone for the meantime, and Bertolt weakly obeyed.

They left Annie, who was standing in front of the seams, icy-blue eyes still staring at a lifeless Eren floating aimlessly in the rivers of Lethe.

* * *

Levi paced anxiously in his throne room, back and forth, back and forth, and Oluo, not used to seeing the death god act jittery before, decided to bite his tongue and avert his gaze to keep himself from saying things that might further trigger the king’s agitation.

Levi ran his talons through his hair, his teeth showing, grating, and his eyes were pained as he let out a deep breath every now and then.

Petra was with Eld and Gunther, consoling her for the things that she did. And even though he wanted to banish away the guard that had endangered Eren’s well-being, he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He was sure that she was one of the few who could tolerate him and his enigmatic self. Among that few was his only confidante.

He needed to say some things to her. Things that he didn’t know. Things that he long wanted to understand. Feelings that he was sure he didn’t knew he had until he met the mortal that had captured his heart.

And that mortal that he so loved, he had left.

In the middle of nowhere.

With nothing but predators seeking for a new flesh to prey on.

Realization dawned on Levi’s face. And he felt his blood run cold.

Just as his feet decided to move on their own accord, the doors to the throne room slammed wide open, and a bloodcurdling scene unfurled before Oluo’s eyes.

An angry Hange Zoë. Storming in with her booted feet stomping on the stone-cold ground.

An angry Hange Zoë. Glaring straight at Levi’s face. Baring and gnashing her teeth at the god.

An angry Hange Zoë. Growling and yelling at his face.

An angry Hange Zoë. Slapping Levi harshly on the face with all the strength she could muster with her cold and shaking hand.

And blood gushed from Oluo’s tongue and mouth, and he passed out from the sight.

“Levi! How dare you!” Hange spat vehemently, ignoring the searing pain that bloomed in her now steaming hand the moment she touched his skin.  She didn’t even dare to ask the sudden change of Levi’s appearance. The sight of seeing half of his face was nothing to her as of the moment—her heart too caught up in blurting out words that rushed through her mind. “I didn’t allow you to be with Eren just for you to abandon him!”

Levi blinked, his mouth hung agape, eyes wide and left cheek tinging a nice shade of pink on pale skin. “It’s for his own good,” he said slowly in a hushed whisper, a voice that Levi wasn’t sure of if it was his own.

He didn’t know what she was saying, leaving Eren was for the mortal’s own good—if he had stared at Levi for longer, then Eren might be—

His thoughts were cut off as Hange stomped her booted foot on the floor once more, creating fissure on the cracks there, and a steaming hiss was let out from the ground.

It was times like these that Hange would let out literal steam opposite to Levi’s large billows of black smoke once mad.

It was also times like these that everyone stood rooted to their place, not daring to breathe, as she let out her roaring anger.

It was the first time, though, that she was on a rampage at her best friend.

The three of the Cerberus, who were standing just outside the room, were hesitant in taking out their spears. A pale-looking Petra, who had still yet to grasp the situation, could only shake her head at the seething ferrywoman.

“What is the matter, Leader?” Petra dared to ask, her voice small and hoarse from bawling earlier during Levi’s search for—

“Eren is dead. _Again_.” Hange spat out her words as she remained glaring menacingly at Levi. “I found him floating in Lethe. I don’t know what on earth happened between you two or how he got there but I swear I will call upon Death itself if the reason he died was because of _you_.”

Amidst Hange’s furious threats to Levi, Petra was starting sweat, her pores seeping coldness through her flesh, and the thumping of her heart reverberated in her ears.

She was starting to hyperventilate, and Eld held her hand to calm her down, but to no avail—

“Where is Eren?” Petra blurted out before she could even take back her words. This was all her fault. She blamed herself. For blindly and stupidly believing in the Fates and their questionable promises, rather than believing in her peers, she blamed herself. For ruining her king’s hopes of getting Eren back the second time around, she blamed herself. For endangering and letting Eren go in the Forest of Groves, she blamed herself. For the exposure of Levi’s face—a forbidden thing that it was to be seen—she blamed herself.

And before she knew it, she ran towards Hange, her whole frame shaking as her cold palms clutched at the gondolier’s elbows and kneeled and begged for her to tell her where Eren was.

“Why is it your concern?” came the cold reply. And Petra shivered at the look on Hange’s face. “Do you have any knowledge of his death?”

Petra dared not to answer.

Levi, at the corner of her eye, stared blankly at her.

Petra’s heart dropped at the sight of a tear rolling down his eyes.

* * *

Petra ran once more. This time, not for herself, but for Eren.

She had to make amends at what she did.

She didn’t dare to spill all the details to the ferrywoman—for Petra feared for her own life—but she eagerly volunteered to help in any way she could.

And so she traveled towards the abode of the life goddess once more.

* * *

The floodgates of memories came pouring in as soon as Hange had explained what had transpired—as she led Levi towards her ferry.

Days of walking under the glaring sun, talking about things of this and that. Days of walking on wind-blown fields of flowers and endless sea of grass. Days of wearing flower crowns and sitting under the large olive trees. Days of thinking and idly daydreaming of wanting a mortal to be his own—to drag him to the underworld to be his mate. Days of watching hunters and huntresses alike, searching for their next prey in the forests. Days of seeing humans in the markets, hollering and tempting anyone of everyone to buy the things that they offered. Days of being carried around as a feline in a certain someone’s warm and strong arms, cuddled close to an equally warm bosom, lulling himself to sleep at the sound of a beating heart. Days of idly frolicking around, being coddled by a passionate mortal in both god and feline forms. Days of lying under the shade of cypresses, with the faintest trace of a smile on his face, all the while listening to a certain someone talking the world away, laughing and gesturing wildly at the skies as he nodded and listened to dreams of flying in the clouds, reaching them as far as the fingertips could touch.

Days of exchanging chaste kisses and awkward hugs, of shoulders and knuckles subtly brushing as they walked, of unspoken words and silent conversations with the slightest glance of meeting eyes. Days of comfortable silence, simply listening to one’s beating heart as the other laid their head on their chest. Days of unquenchable curiosity to know each other, wanting to peel off the layers of defenses that concealed the malleable beings that they really were.

Days of exchanging sad smiles and butterfly kisses when the sun had set and the other parted ways. Days of sadness when the flower crowns withered away. Days of seeing life coming to death when the mortal was away. Days of longing when he could only see the mortal through a seam. Days of fluttering emotions once they reunited. Days of suppressed actions, of more chaste kisses and very tight hugs.

Days of heartache and anguish and despair and oblivion when that mortal died.

Days of wearing heavy hearts and unbridled love melding together when that mortal’s spirit clung beside him.

Days of happiness and love bursting in his heart when he held him in his arms once more.

The moment when Levi had turned his back on him, bidding him goodbye with the sole intent of protecting Eren from another untimely end.

And all of those memories came crumbling down when Levi saw Eren lying on the wooden floorboards, surrounded by the wailing souls in the ferry—the hunter all wet and unmoving and bruised and battered in various parts of his tanned and cold body.

Levi took one hesitant step in the ferry, and the spirits, who immediately knew who he was, wailed and bowed and slithered away and averted their gazes from his partly-exposed face. They knew who he was. And Levi, who had always been self-conscious and afraid of revealing his true face to anyone, didn’t care anymore as he stepped towards the unmoving Eren, his bare feet making the floorboards creak and rot with each deliberate step, silver eyes never leaving Eren’s parted lips.

Eren’s skin, Levi realized as he knelt beside him, was still tanned, yet it felt ice-cold beneath his touch. The god’s breath hitched as his gaze was drawn at the singed flesh where his talons had touched before they parted. On Eren’s left brow and left shoulder were ugly bumps of flesh, and blood had long seeped out, and a loud cry tore at the god’s throat.

And Levi crouched and ripped out his hair in frustration, wailing out Eren’s name, apologizing repeatedly at the cold corpse with wracked sobs. And he held the hunter in his arms—the god couldn’t help it anymore—crying harder at the sight of the mortal’s peeling flesh.

“I wanted you to be free, I wanted you to be free…!” he cried out hoarsely, tears streaming from his face as he hugged the rapidly rotting flesh. He couldn’t stop himself from touching him, even in death.

“ _In the end, I couldn’t free you from this wretched world._ ”

Hange finally looked away from the sight, her jaw clenched—her heart not knowing what to feel about her friend.

‘I once told you not to let go of him no matter what,’ she tried to say, but the words never left her lips, and she shed tears—not for Levi, but for poor, pitiful Eren, who only wanted the death god’s love.

She observed the way Levi poured his heart out. She never thought she’d see the day. A few centuries back, she had been sure that he was the only one aside from Annie who was as heartless as a rock when it came to love.

She had been proven wrong, and for that, she was content. Yet she couldn’t help but feel pity for him.

She remembered the way Levi looked completely disgusted at the sight of humans a few decades back, saying things that made her almost reconsider him being her best friend. But she had pulled through, and Hange made it a mission there and then to find someone, whether mortal or not, for the apathetic Levi. And when she had seen an adorable baby boy born from Carla, Hange knew that those sea green eyes would be the fall of the death god’s impenetrable defenses.

And so she saw to it that the boy would grow up to be a great young man, his eyes and heart filled with the pure want for freedom and unbridled passion and love for life—things that she wanted the dark-hearted Levi to have.

Hange, sadly, didn’t possess the eyes of the future.

She tightened her hold on her scythe. She had been trying not to fling it out at a random direction in frustration.

And when she saw a raven cawing loudly overhead, she bared her teeth at it, wanting to rip it shreds.

* * *

Petra stumbled many times on her way to Historia’s dwellings, gasping for breath every now and then as her eyes darted towards a distant bright ray of light.

She smiled to herself despite the tears that have been streaming down her face for the past hour. She blamed herself for everything that have happened to her king and his lover, and at the moment, a pale and sweating Petra, out of the heavy guilt wearing down her heart—

—pointed her spear to her chest.

Right before she stabbed her chest, she heard a series of loud screeches from above.

* * *

 

Ravens flocked the lands of Greece and Sicily, the birds forming myriads upon myriads as they scoured the skies, bathing the land’s inhabitants in terror.

Their bloodied beaks did little to pacify the murmurings of the people below, their eyes set wide with fear for the pitch-black heavens.

The ravens cawed and flapped their large wings overhead, as though giving a warning to all those who could see the flocks. And the people of young and old scurried away to their houses. Some sought for refuge inside the temples of their gods and goddesses, offering prayers and food and the sweetest of wines to the marbled and golden statues with much fervor. Some hid behind walls, some crouched underneath the carts and jars littered about in the markets, eyeing the skies for signs of anything more impending than the seemingly frightening plague about to devour the land.

And Olympus heard their pleas.

Pixis ordered all nymphs and gods and goddesses residing in Olympus to search for the source of the mayhem. A weeping Carla, unknowing of the things happening outside as she was in her state of mourning once more, blindly asked the god what happened. And Pixis replied.

“Ravens are all over the place. No one knows why.” His tone was clipped, strained, and his eyes were narrowed as he looked at the mourning goddess. “All we know is that those birds are symbols of Death.”

Upon hearing Pixis’s last word, Carla stood up from where she was kneeling. Gone was her mourning for her child. Gone was her thought of rationale.

Just then, Sasha stormed in the cloud-filled room, her hands void of food for once. Her eyes were filled with urgency, her wings flapping furiously as she ran towards Pixis.

“The ravens are leaving signs, Your Grace!” she exclaimed, her voice a bit raw. Probably from screaming orders earlier, Carla thought.

“What signs?” Carla and Pixis asked in unison, their brows raised at the messenger.

At this, Sasha gulped, and her face seemed to have lost a bit of color as she parted her lips to speak.

“The ravens are—flocking together, sir.”

Pixis nodded curtly, brows furrowing even further, “Yes, yes. I know that, child. Anything else?”

And Sasha looked away, fumbling with her arms as she bit her lip with tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “I... tried to eat some of those ravens earlier, you see, and—oh, no, no! Not raw! Don’t look at me like that, Goddess, please! They just looked so delicious and I was thinking of eating them in a pit of sorts that Armin made earlier—he’s really good in his resources! Oh, ah—yes, explanation. Um, when I was about to rip off the feathers from one of the ravens earlier, I—saw something quite strange stuck in their feathers. They’re, um...”

Her voice faltered, and she looked unsure of what to say next. And Carla, too anxious to hear what she was about to say, lightly tapped her foot. “Well? What’s strange? Why the sudden silence?”

Sasha’s teeth almost gnashed as she looked at a mortified Carla.

“They have strange little beady things stuck on them. I thought they were just pollens at first, but upon closer inspection, I saw that they were… uh, pomegranate seeds.”

The color from Carla’s face fell.

Gone was her reluctant understanding for Levi and his affection for her son. But Pixis’s words remained in her mind, gnawing at her very core.

‘ _He continued to befriend him despite knowing what Levi truly is._ ’

For once in her long life as a goddess, she was at a loss of what to do.

Did Eren eat the fruit of sin on his own, took it in his own hands and ate his fill to stay there for eternity? To join the god of death below? Or was he forced to eat them, like the time that the death god forced himself on Eren’s company? Carla didn’t want to believe that Eren took the fruit and ate it on his own accord, but—

“Why are there ravens in the land, by the way?” she asked Sasha. And the messenger could only shake her head, not knowing what to say.

“I am not sure, Goddess, but there is something even stranger than those ravens. Almost all of them are heading towards Sicily, in the meadows of Enna.”

Carla’s brown eyes widened.

Gone was her hope for her only child.

Her façade changed, from shell-shocked to downright frightening in seconds, and the messenger held back a squeak as she was shook by the shoulders by one fiery goddess.

“Call Erwin, Sasha. This is now an open war.”

* * *

A rush of static blanketed her ears, a flurry of voices that resembled nothing of coherence. Petra was sure she had died. She was sure she had stabbed herself with her spear; and she was so sure that she hadn’t fulfilled her last mission—of going to Historia and beg her to save Eren once more.

Slowly, she felt her fingers twitch, her breath letting out deep gulps of air as she felt the stone ground on her back, her eyes prickling with tears as the noise around her seemed to grow louder.

Words were being said around her now, that much she could tell—something about her being stupid. Petra felt coldness seep into her cloaked flesh, the rough texture of stones rubbing against her clothes. She couldn’t remember the last time she was called such a thing, and her breath hitched as she heard words once again, this time, of calling her a foolish one, for resorting to regretful things instead of leaning to her friends in times of trouble.

She felt a tear slide down her temple. She knew the voices now. Oluo, and Eld. Gunther, she could hear too—he was muttering apologies, for what, she didn’t know.

Her lips parted just the slightest, and she felt a hand wrap around her own.

“Wake up, Petra!” she heard Oluo yell out, and she felt her heart stop.

“I’m sorry,” she finally mumbled, her voice a hoarse whisper, a barely audible one, a voice that made Oluo want to cry out despite his yells of ‘Damn right, you’re sorry!’.

Those two small words were enough for the three cloaked men, and Gunther, being the closest to her as he sat near her head, wiped Petra’s tears. They didn’t have to tell her that killing herself would never change anything, for Petra, since Levi had took her in his care, had always been immortal.

And the four of them shared a moment of comfort and calm, their voices silent as Petra shed her tears and apologies.

“I just wanted to make everyone happy through Eren—”

“The Fates know their job, Petra,” said Eld, his face grim as he observed her tear-stained face. “But the price to pay for our happiness is steep—at the cost of Eren’s life. Don’t you know that?”

Her face went pale, her eyes round and large and frightened, her lips dry and not forming words—

“I guess you didn’t know,” Gunther supplied. “The Fates always do that—deceiving people with promises that will be painful if fulfilled. Petra, I should have told you that before anything happened and—”

“I made the choice, I’m sorry—”

“Ssorry doessn’t cut it, Petra. Do you undersstand what thiss meanss? You broke our king—”

“Oluo, stop chastising her too much. I think she knows what this means—” Eld was cut off with a choked sob from the woman.

She had seen and heard them talk to their king earlier, of how brave and willing they were to sacrifice themselves and be dead just to spare her from the god’s wrath. And to think she had just threw all their cares away by killing herself—

“I—really don’t deserve you guys at all...”

* * *

The doors leading to the throne room of the god of death had never looked so lively in the centuries that Hange had been with Levi.

Wild flowers and moss lined up the stoned gray walls and steel doors, and grass filled the grounds.

In the middle of the room, Levi’s throne, which had been previously filled with moss and vines, was now covered in the most beautiful tapestry of flowers he had ever seen. Lilies, altheas, bellflowers, blackthorns, white, and red, carnations—

Cedars. Marigolds. Red clovers.

Levi closed his eyes as he saw the last three blooms growing near Eren’s right arm, their little petals entwining the steadily decaying flesh. It seemed that even in his death, Eren still radiated a spring of life.

Cedars for immortality. Marigolds for grief. Red clovers for freedom.

“Are you trying to tell me something, Eren…? I apologize—for everything,” he mumbled to himself, and cold talons slowly encased themselves around Eren’s legs, Levi’s half-exposed face now buried on the corpse’s knees. He wasn’t aware of the little iron chips of his mask slowly flaking away as his brows furrowed in agony, muttering unintelligible words in his wake.

Hange looked away, swallowing back the lump that had been blocking her throat for the past few hours since she found Eren. The image of his deathly pale face would forever be branded in her mind, and she wanted to forget it if she could. She glanced at the vine and flower-covered remains of the hunter. Oddly enough, there was no smell of death around Eren, nor was there a visible sign that he was dead at first glance—if you didn’t count the singes on his skin from Levi’s touches.

And he was doing it again—touching Eren with his destructive hands. She had pried Levi away from Eren earlier too, to make sure the process of decay would be slowed down, but at this rate, where Levi couldn’t seem to do anything but to touch and feel Eren—

She sighed, and looked at her own hands, both of them now sporting thin streaks of red blotches from touching Levi’s bare skin. She glanced at him, and saw that the smoke around him was growing thicker and darker by the second. Grief was overtaking him, and she didn’t know how much longer he could take before he’d break down completely.

Idly, she wondered when the heartless and indifferent Levi had been so expressive, so emotional—so _human_.

“Levi,” she started, pressing down a comforting hand on his shoulder despite the pain that seared through her palm, “Eren is gone now—”

“Don’t say it,” she heard him say. And Hange bit her lip. His voice sounded too hoarse, too strained, too broken. And she couldn’t do anything but to look at Eren’s legs that were still imprisoned by Levi’s talons.

She gently tried to coax his hands away from the gradually burning human flesh, but Levi wouldn’t budge; instead, he tightened his grip more and muttered incoherencies under his breath, and Hange, desperate more than ever to preserve what little sanity her friend had left, wrapped her arms around him and pulled the struggling god away.

“Let go of me! Eren—I want Eren—! He needs me—”

She choked back a cry upon hearing those shattered words.

“I know you want him!” she heaved out, her voice croaking, tired. She staggered as she kept on hugging the small god away from the peaceful-looking Eren sitting primly on the throne. “But hugging him while he is on his deathbed will do both of you no good! Levi, get a grip of yourself! You’re killing what little chance you have with Eren—”

“There was never a chance to begin with.”

Hange stopped in trying to stop her friend, her eyes looking at the suddenly still god in her arms. She didn’t mind the burning pain on her body anymore, she doubted her physical pain would compare to what Levi was feeling at the moment, or how Eren must have struggled to keep Levi with him despite the tragic consequences.

“...there was never a chance between us since the start. I knew that.”

Her hold on him slackened, and Levi fell limp to the ground, his back hunched over, his head bent down.

The very picture of hopelessness.

Hange kneeled behind him, listening as the god went on.

“Everything was planned, wasn’t it. It’s all a part of their twisted plan. This,” he gestured flippantly, lips curling downwards into a resigned smile, “this plan of happiness of theirs, this is what it’s all about, isn’t it. I’m no fool, Hange. I’ve known of their plan for a long time, since the day I had stolen that damned seam. Heh, I overheard that blonde saying that she fancies a mortal on earth. I didn’t think much into it that time, because I was too focused on killing my boredom and stealing the seam was the only way to do it that time. Bah, who knew that she was talking about Eren...?” He shrugged, “I didn’t. All I knew was that Eren was given to me by that slimy geezer. Up to now, I still think you have a hand in this. You suggested him to me, right.”

Hange shook her head, smiling sadly at him as he regarded her with blank gray eyes. “Dear, I had a hunch too that she was on to something. I was with you that day, remember? I was just lounging outside while you stole that thing, and Bertolt saw me, yet he said nothing. I highly doubt that he said anything about it at all. For all I know, all he saw that day was that nothing will happen—back then, that is. But I didn’t have a hand in what happened, all in all. All I did was suggest that you should meet someone who would nullify the stream of deaths you leave behind—and that was Eren. Heck, if I knew this would happen, I shouldn’t have let you meet him in the first place!” She saw him stiffen, and upon realizing what she had just blurted out, she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, “But I let you meet Eren because I knew that, if there ever was a person, mortal or not, on this whole twisted universe who could tear up your untouchable shadow of a heart, it’s him. It has got to be him. That was what I said to myself before I suggested him to you. Or maybe that Hitch had something to do with all my decisions...” She tapped her finger under her chin, lips pursed thoughtfully. And Levi could only shake his head.

“Whether it was Hitch’s sick game of seeing me in agony or whether it was your own thought, nothing changed the fact that Eren is dead now. All because of me. I—I wanted him to be mine and free him from this place at the same time, I really do—and—and now he’s—I shouldn’t have left him there alone—!”

Suddenly, the doors to the throne room were slammed open, and the four guardsmen of Levi stood there with sweaty faces, along with a wide-eyed Historia and a passive Ymir.

“Please, let me help him!” Historia cried out.

And Hange let out a smallest hint of a tired smile.

* * *

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I have no excuse for the image of Petra I’m about to give you this chapter. :x Just... please. We all know how a nymph does her ways, right? In reality, I didn’t expect to write a backstory for Petra, but, oh well.
> 
> I apologize in advance for the liberal butchering I did to Greek mythology. It’s uncalled for, I know. Also, I apologize for any glaring errors. :v

The throne room smelled very much like the meadows for the first time since it was built. Historia, having heard the details from the Cerberus on their way here, silently noted the odd way the flora clung onto Eren’s skin—like they were coming out of his flesh. She approached the peaceful-looking hunter sitting in the middle of the room. The serene look on Eren’s face was really a beautiful sight, Historia mused. A tight-lipped smile graced her lips, and she caressed the hunter’s skin, biting her inner cheek upon feeling the malleable flesh.

“Have you been touching him since he was like this?” she asked Levi, her eyes still trained on Eren’s lips. She sniffed his hair, which smelled lightly of fresh water.

“I have,” the god mumbled, embarrassed as he looked away, his face looking as though caught from doing something shameful. “Is it wrong?” His voice was barely audible, raspy and breathless from all the weight filling his chest.

“It is,” she said, “depends on how long you have touched him, that is. His ability to spread life remains because he’s the son of a goddess, he’s not entirely mortal—but your touch, frankly, taints him—because you are everything he is not. It depletes his ability to bring life. Bringing him back completely is steep.” She faced him, her hand now placed on Eren’s arm, “Had the protection you gave him before now gone?”

“Sadly, yes.” The god refrained from looking at her, whether it was from uneasiness of her holy presence, or from despising other deities’ forms—he had yet to master the art of talking eloquently with other deities—Levi couldn’t say much more, as his mind was filled with images of Eren’s dead body. “I can’t give another one to him anymore?”

Historia chewed on her lip, her jaw tightening just the slightest as she noted the absolute sadness from his voice. It somehow reminded her of a child asking his mother if she could fix his favorite, and broken, toy.

Levi was, at the moment, the epitome of a damaged soul.

The fact that anyone could see half of his face further warranted that fact—the look on Levi’s face, a completely lost child.

Historia’s shoulders squared and held back her tears of sympathy. Easily moved that she was, she took a deep sigh, and mustered a large smile for Levi.

“It will be hard to bring him back completely this time.”

Hange, who had been talking silently with Ymir, suddenly piped up, a cheerful façade now spreading across her face as she almost jumped at the goddess, ignoring Ymir’s furious warnings at the gondolier. “But you _can_ do it, right?”

“Of course she can!” Ymir intervened, huffing proudly as she came up to Historia and draped an arm on her shoulder. “This is my Historia you’re talking about! She can do anything!” And in a moment of hesitation, Ymir looked at the blonde suspiciously, “You _can_ do it, right?”

From the doorway, the Cerberus looked at each other warily, unsure of what to make of Ymir’s doubtful question.

* * *

Soldiers bearing arms and decked in golden and crystal armor from head to toe flocked the vast halls that housed Erwin, the god of war. Earlier, he had received a message from Sasha—something about a declaration of war against the underworld.

Such a thing was preposterous in his opinion, but when he heard that it was requested by Carla, he knew he was in for a big catastrophe. As far as he remembered, goddess Carla was benevolent, full of patience, loving, motherly, and all characteristics that a saint would have. Never had he encountered an occurrence that would fuel anger from her. It was strange, uncalled for.

When he had asked Sasha what was the reason behind the goddess’s odd request, she had replied with a shake of her head, tears almost springing from her eyes.

Erwin had let her return to Carla there and then. There was no need to keep her, questioning her with barrage upon barrage of questions that the messenger couldn’t answer.

The sound of the armor scraping against the marbled walls screeched loudly in Erwin’s ears, and he sighed, his thoughts whirling with doubts and questions.

He should talk to Carla first. Talk to her about what happened with who. Surely, there was a reason why she was hell-bent on trying to wage war on—

He paused in his tracks, blue eyes growing wide with realization.

And then it hit him.

Carla. Levi.

There was only one thing they have in common.

Eren.

Erwin rubbed his temples, hissing as he weighed his options on who he should side with. Carla was a bringer of life and resources. She sowed things that would be useful to all of humankind and the gods, and she bore resources to people who would benefit for all of humanity’s future generations. And Levi...

Levi brought him justice to people who deserved death, people who were too stubborn to follow the rules of the earth, and people who were unlawful and evil. At the same time, Levi also brought untimely deaths to people who weren’t deserved to die. People who died of old age, of diseases, of calamities, of certain circumstances that no one could predict—he brought death to them, even if Levi himself didn’t want to. It was Levi who cleaned all the filth and the worn-outs that tainted the land, and in turn, the death god became filthy himself.

A weighty decision, it was indeed.

Erwin closed his eyes, his heart growing slow and weary.

Choose the life bringer, and he will lose justice. Choose the death bringer, and he will lose hope for the future.

“...Pixis must be having a great time with all my suffering.”

* * *

“Look, I’m sorry. I know you’re still angry at me for slapping ya earlier but—”

Levi shook his head and held his palm up to Hange, “I get it. You’re mad at me for abandoning Eren. It’s fine, I—deserved it...” His voice trailed off, his whole being feeling heavy and lifeless. In Hange’s eyes, her friend was in definite need of comfort, and what kind of friend would she be if he couldn’t even manage to provide him one?

And so, despite her protesting body littered with little scars and painful and sensitive burns from touching his skin, Hange did all she could to embrace Levi from behind, biting back a hiss as his bare skin made contact with her cloaked one.

And as she thought, Levi slumped in her hold, and all feelings that he had been withholding seemed to ebb away as she gently rocked him back and forth.

“Don’t worry, Little Death. Everything will soon be all right. All will be fine. Historia will do her best in keeping her promise. She will bring Eren back.” And Hange mustered a small simper as she neared her cheek to his steadily cracking mask, willing away the pain that singed her skin. She knew Levi noticed it, but she paid it no heed as she held him tighter, smiling widely all the while. “And you’ll be back to being your old grumpy, yet lovable self. Scowling and saying crude things at anyone while completely adorable Eren dangles off from your back saying sweet things to you and—aha! See? You laughed, I can tell! Your shoulders shook, and I heard you chuckle! Ya can’t hide it from me!”

Levi held back a tiny smile, and he hid his partly-exposed face as his little smile widened just the slightest.

She knew him so well.

His right hand moved to pat her arm, but stopped short when he remembered what his presence was capable of—and he shook his head, eyes closing as he sighed.

“I hope that goddess stays true to her word,” he said, and he blinked rapidly as soon as he felt a bit of iron slip down his still damp lashes. “I don’t think I can live without Eren anymore.”

Hange chuckled, and looked at the scene around them. They were sitting near the Asphodel meadows—far from the castle of Levi, as requested by a solemn Historia. Levi had acquiesced reluctantly, only because Hange coaxed him that leaving Eren alone with the life goddess was the best track of plan to follow. Hange still had her doubts, however, as she was slightly disturbed by Ymir’s question to Historia.

Yet Historia kept her word, and both clung their hopes to it.

She looked at the still downhearted Levi once more, and she firmly rubbed his arms. She couldn’t feel the pain in her palms anymore, and she didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Nevertheless, she grinned at him, stifling a sniffle.

“Look at you, becoming a sap all of a sudden! It’s the power of your love for Eren, I tell you. He turns you into one. Haha!”

It was to make light of the situation, to make her friend feel at ease about the whole thing, yet no words from Hange could make Levi have a peace of mind. And Levi further sank into depression.

“I don’t deserve him, Hange. I never hav—”

“Oh hush. Don’t say it—”

“One as deadly as me could never be fit for Ere—”

His words were cut off by a stiff pat on his shoulders as he was whirred around, and his eyes met a stern-faced Hange.

“Levi. I told you, _don’t_ say it. There is no one in this world, in the human realm or in the gods’ realm, who would be perfect for the lit—well, not-so-little—guy. Eren is, was—ugh— _is_ just depressed that time. I mean, judging by his reaction to you abandoning him, you must have been pretty harsh—”

He averted his gaze from her, and hissed guiltily upon seeing her burnt hand and arm on his left shoulder. His shoulders relaxed, his expression resigned. “One who sees my face would surely die—”

“If they are a mortal—”

“Which Eren is—”

“But the effects of death could be reversed—”

“If they didn’t eat anything in this damned place—”

“Historia is residing here for a reason—”

“Ymir the faithful is doubting her for once—”

“It could be a joke—”

“Or not—”

“Levi, stop being so negative.”

Levi stopped retorting, biting his lip as his face scrunched, clearly not liking being treated like a reprimanded child.

“I just,” he paused, holding back a breathless sob, “don’t want to keep my hopes up in something that is not definite—”

Hange smiled sadly at his honesty, and she mussed up his hair playfully, feeling the coarseness of his horns as she did so. She giggled at the sight of his twitching and drooping ears—which reminded her of the cat that he could become—and her smile faltered at the sight of his scrunching lip.

“Keep your head up, Little Death,” she said, tilting his chin up with her forefinger. “The Fates are looking at us, surely.”

Levi huffed, yet made no move to push her burnt hand away, “Don’t call me by that name. How many times do I have to say it? Plus, don’t mention those miscreants. They make me want to kill off every single being in this realm.”

A dry laugh slipped past her lips at those uttered words, and her hand slid to his exposed cheek, caressing it softly. She smiled at him, all soft and friendly, and she lightly bumped her forehead to his.

“It’s been a very long time since I saw the whole of your face. He’s the second one who have managed to break your defenses, Levi. Don’t let go of this person. Not this time.”

Levi closed his eyes, and a ghost of a smile flickered on his lips.

“Don’t bring up the past. It was why I couldn’t do it. That person, no matter what they did, is very precious to me.”

* * *

Historia hummed as she observed Eren carefully. He was now lying down on the currently grassy floor, the soft blades kissing his skin as she placed his head on her lap. Ymir stood loyally beside her, her back faced towards a troubled Historia. Ymir had her doubts about bringing Eren back for the second time, yet she didn’t dare voice out her opinions.

Some words were better left unsaid.

“How long will it take you to revive him this time?” Ymir asked, still not facing her. Her hands were placed firmly behind her back, like a soldier’s, and her gaze at the wall pierced holes as she spoke. Nevertheless, Historia took it as a sign of unease. She knew that Historia was having a hard time.

Reviving a person for the second time involved a tremendous amount of power, even for an immortal and a goddess.

Reviving a person for the second time, and one who had eaten the forbidden fruit in the Forest of Groves and had been floating about in the rivers of Lethe, was even harder.

Historia sighed, her thumb idly making little circles on Eren’s scalp.

“I am not sure how long. Two weeks? Three? This is the first time I encountered such a thing—”

“But you _will_ do it, right? Or else there will be wars upon us because his mother will—”

Historia nodded gravely, and looked at the solemn face of the hunter.

“He is still intact. His spirit never passed through the gates because he didn’t pay Hange’s toll, therefore, he didn’t appear before the Judges—because no judgment could be passed when there is no spirit to judge. There was no reason to, because Eren is currently not in this world. Because of that, he could still be alive in there. We can still jumpstart his life.”

Historia’s touches were feather-light against Eren’s skin, and she silently apologized to the unresponsive mortal as she carefully peeled off his sea-green toga from his shoulders, hissing upon seeing the handprints of the souls all over his torso and neck.

They tried to maul him—

“This is going to be a hard task,” she whispered to herself, her eyes ghosting over every red handprint on the cold flesh. “Plus,” she glanced at Ymir, who looked rather grim, “this is going to be even more difficult since he had eaten a pomegranate. His very being is now bound in the underworld. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, though...”

Ymir was silent for a moment, and upon hearing Historia’s last words, she finally decided to open up the topic she never knew she would open. “Hey, Historia. Remember that story about Little Death? How no one could ever lay a finger on him because if they did, they’d die?”

Historia nodded, and Ymir went on, “Well, that’s part of the story. Word has it—the ferrywoman once told me—that, a long time ago, the death god had no such thing.”

“What thing?”

“That thing! That,” and Ymir flailed her arms about, fingers dancing wildly around her, “that smoke thing! And that mask! She once told me that the heartless death god had not always been what we thought him to be.”

Historia hummed, and seemed quite intrigued by the news, “Go on.”

Ymir smirked, “The Leader told me, when we were out in Tartarus, that our Little Death here had once fallen in love with a nymph—”

Historia blinked, and blindly pointed at the slumbering Eren, and Ymir furiously shook her head.

“Not him, not him. Eren is a mortal. I meant that cloaked little guard. _Petra!_ One of the Cerberus! She was once a nymph on earth!”

“I thought she had always been an immortal?”

“Apparently not,” and Ymir straightened her back, her arms placed on her hips as she smirked, “Our little fiery-haired friend had once been a mortal, one that possessed beauty that up to this day, she still has. And that beauty captivated Little Death. Back then, King Levi, even though he reeks of death all the time, had been approachable. I know, hard to imagine, right. Anyway, he was still aloof, yet somehow, some spirits approached him—for comfort from being alone, the Leader supposed. Then one day, when he had set out on his rare journey to earth to search for people whose time would soon pass, a nymph had been captivated by him. She was meek, yet she possessed an iron will to have her way. She could not be swayed by others into coaxing her that playing with the god of death would mean her swift demise. She did all that she could to make him turn her way. She wanted to have him because of his status as a god, plus, his charm and looks. And, one day, when the king was wandering around the riverbanks near Elis, he saw her bathing.

“And that was when he had fallen. A mistake or some sort of sick manipulation from the Fates, no one would ever know—but all that happened was the king, in his moment of weakness, had silently trudged up to her, and he was unaware of the broken twigs beneath his feet. His clumsy right foot broke a wee twig, and the nymph was startled and tried to flee—but when she realized it was a shocked Levi, she had decided to play her cards on him. A bit of seduction here and there, some showy display of her naked body here and there, and behold! She had him trapped in the palm of her sly hand.”

Historia blinked, her mouth set into a thin line. She was speechless from all of what she was hearing—such actions didn’t seem to sit on Petra’s quiet and friendly nature—yet Ymir spared no detail unturned as she spoke on with much enthusiasm.

“And King Levi became enthralled of her. Wanted her. She had given him love, at least, that’s what he thought.”

Ymir paused in her long tale, glancing at Eren with sympathy. She scratched her cheek, and, upon seeing Historia’s blinking eyes, spoke once more. Ymir sighed.

“To cut the long story short, King Levi soon found out about the nymph’s true nature. One day, he found her in the rivers, her whole body draped over some random fisherman, clearly seducing him—it was then that Levi swore that he would never fall in love again. He thought he had found the one who he would spend time with in the depths of the underworld. He was saddened by all of it, but he never told her about her betrayal, he just,” Ymir gestured wildly about, shrugging, “he just returned to the underworld, and he never resurfaced to the earth for a long time.”

“So, this is where the blacksmith comes in, right? Surely, that is why the king had decided to create the cloud of smoke and asked Keith to make him the mask, right? Surely, that was why he had created a curse upon himself, right? It was so that he couldn’t be hurt by anyone again, right?”

The eagerness in Historia’s voice made Ymir crack up, and the tanned goddess patted her head, “Indeed, that’s why. It happened too many eons ago, long before we had taken an acquaintance with him. The king had returned to the netherworld to hide away his shattered heart. He hid away for many moons and tried to forget all of it. He had become stone-cold, enigmatic, looming—to anyone and everyone. And yet, when he had found out that the nymph he had foolishly loved had died by the very hands of the mortal she had been seducing that day, Levi couldn’t help but feel pity for her. So he returned to earth to search for her and he found her lying near the river in the mountains of Elis, where he had first fallen for her. She was cold and lifeless by the time he found her, and he brought her down to the underworld with him to make her a resident there. Ferrywoman Hange thought it was stupid, as did the Judges, but he was adamant in it—and, after her spirit had completely vanished from his hands, he coaxed Annie into remaking Petra again. The weaver is the only one who can create and recreate life, after all.”

“But,” Historia interrupted, her expression perturbed, “this is the weaver of the Fates we are talking about—every request that goes through her comes at a steep price. And a thing like remaking a nymph is laughable! They seduce men and women alike and drag them down with them for nourishment of wherever their place of origin is. Insane creatures, they are.”

Ymir nodded solemnly, grateful that Historia was catching up, “True. So from the figments of her existence, the weaver rewove life into the lifeless Petra in the king’s arms, and she was reborn into being his guard. She had no memories of him or of being a nymph—that was the greatest price that Annie took—and only Hange and the king and the Fates and the Judges knew of everything. For all Petra knew, she was a mortal who had died and was picked up by the king in the river of the dead and was chosen to be his sentinel. And that was that. The other three guards, were real mortals-turned-immortals by Levi’s power, yet they knew nothing of Petra’s past.”

Historia shook her head, her lips frowning and her eyes watering from the sad tale, “If his power could turn mortals into immortals, then why didn’t he just turn Eren into one in the first place so the king would have never experienced all of this?”

Ymir scrunched her lips, crouching down in front of Eren. Poking his cheek, she smiled.

“It’s because, according to the gondolier, King Levi is really a kindhearted person deep down. And he had always sworn that he would never force whoever he would love, to turn away from their home. King Levi knew that feeling very well. Having to be forced into this wretched place by his own brothers had always been a sore subject for him. Plus, even though he knows of the vast amount of power the Fates hold—even greater than the Olympians themselves—he still struggles to find and destroy the very being that is called Fate. Though, in reality, the Fates are really cruel, and just wants to see him suffer through the destruction of the people he cherished the most. Eren is the second one.”

“But he is not dead.”

“I know—which doesn’t add up to the Fates’ usual plan.”

Ymir and Historia looked at each other, their eyes full of questions as they felt the air around them grow colder.

* * *

Trying to redeem herself seemed nothing to her anymore as Levi wordlessly passed Petra by, and she bowed her head in shame as Hange locked eyes with her.

The god and the gondolier were now back in the throne room, their faces grim as they examined Eren still lying on Historia’s lap. The goddess’s eyes were closed in concentration, and Ymir, ever faithful to her, stood beside her, narrow eyes sharp on anyone who might dare to disrupt her.

Levi knelt a few feet away from Eren. Everything seemed to be all too familiar now. The agonizing wait. The piercing eyes. The hammering heart full of impatience. And Levi wanted to scream in frustration, but he held himself back well. Hange was beside him, should anything happen to him. She would always be there.

“It will take a long time before he returns here,” Historia breathed, her eyes still closed as her hands remained hovering on Eren’s chest. “The amount of the deadly fruit he has eaten is more than enough to keep him here for half a year.”

Historia knew she should stop herself from talking, from bringing more pain to the death god, but it couldn’t be helped. He needed to know the truth. The sooner she told him, the sooner he would understand.

Levi stayed silent, dull gray eyes fleeting over Eren’s bruised body, and he suddenly felt remorse overpower him.

He shouldn’t have left Eren alone in the Forest of Groves. Or anywhere. He never should have let him away from his sight even for a moment.

“The goddess of life and hearth can revive mortals, yes. But the weaver of the Fates can do more. Levi, you can make him—”

“Don’t say it, Hange,” Levi hissed. He knew what she was about to say. “She won’t be rewriting and removing any of Eren’s memories. I want them all intact. I want him to remember me. Remember me just as I will remember him until all of Olympus falls.”

Hange fell quiet, and she nodded at her friend, who was trying very hard to be strong for Eren.

He had to.

She glanced at Petra, who was peeking through the narrow gap of the wide doors, and she gave the sentinel a small smile, to which Petra returned with a jolt and a quick bow.

* * *

The first thing he heard was a cacophony of voices—distant echoes of yells and whatnot. Eren was unconscious, and yet he was not. The first thing he noticed was the lightweight feel on his body. Second was the feeling of a hand smoothing through his hair—

The voices grew louder, more panicked—

He wanted to open his eyes, but he had no strength to do so.

In his mind, he was fast asleep, listening to the sound of the distant voices in his ear.

* * *

A touch of a familiar hand somehow stirred Eren awake today. At least, the hunter thought it was a hand that touched him. It felt all too familiar—the tender feel of sharp talons grazing his skin, his face… and then…

There was nothing more—and he drifted back to the world of Hypnos.

* * *

A loud roar resounded through his ears. To Eren, it had been awhile since he had heard such voices. It sounded too surreal, to terrifying—and a sense of déjà vu washed over him, and he tried to—

“Not now!”

There it was. That familiar voice again. As though he had heard of it before. Sultry. Deep. Too soothing and rich.

_‘Reminds me of a confection I ate a while back—cacao, I believe. Deep and bitter yet enticing to the palate.’_

Eren closed his eyes, his vision not really seeing anything for who-knows-how-long, all he could remember was that voice, lulling him to sleep even if each vibrato that echoed in his hearing was a clear shout. Eren frowned, and he drifted off to unconsciousness once more, not before being touched by a hand that was unfamiliar to his senses. Small and light and gentle and smooth—unlike the hands that he was so accustomed to graze his skin.

* * *

Eren loved this feeling—the feeling of floating along limbo. At least, he thought he was in limbo, a place for all the peaceful creatures who have once roamed the earth. Here, he was content. No sign of darkness all around him. All was peaceful and calm and free, just as how he wanted his life to be. And Eren wanted to smile. Though, at the back of his mind, there was a nagging thought, the feeling of something that he should remember, something that was sure was important—yet he couldn’t remember what it was.

A tear fell from his eye, and he felt something brush it away from his temple—that all too familiar hand with talons, gently touching his face.

Eren’s lips parted, the tip of his tongue curling and touching his upper teeth—the beginnings of a name that he failed to remember.

And all was nothingness.

* * *

The next thing Eren noticed was that he could finally move. It was the feeling of having to finally shift your muscles after having slept on one side of the bed for too long. It was the feeling of finally having to stretch your muscles, to pop the joints in the feet and in the hands and in the shoulders. The feeling of finally being able to breathe deeply, to know that blood was pumping and coursing through the veins—

The feeling of being alive.

Eren slowly opened his eyes, and the first thing he noticed was the darkness of the ceiling. An all too familiar sight.

The sudden rush of air filling his lungs made him frown. For a moment, he was sure he knew he was dead. He moved to sit up from the stone-cold floor, and all of a sudden, he heard the sound of something being ripped apart. A scream. A screech. A thud. The continuous banging on the doors of the throne room that was somehow covered in moss and vines and dark flowers.

Eren’s eyes roamed about, his frown deepening. The room was filled to the brim with all the life he was used to giving unintentionally. Yet, to him, it was bare. For all he knew, he was alone in the room—

The sounds of screaming and choked cries rang in his ears once more. Curiosity getting the best of him, he slowly stood up, trying to feel the rush of life inside him once more. Again, he contemplated Death.

He was sure he was dead. He was supposed to be lying and rotting and being devoured by the wailing souls in the rivers of Lethe—why, though, he failed to remember. Why did he try to end his life? It was a question that ate his mind since he had awoken.

Eren lightly pushed the heavy doors, peeking through it with dulled green eyes.

He tilted his head slightly at the sight of the golden blood that met his vision, and he shut his eyes as a speck of it managed to land on his nose.

He was a mortal, and mortals die by being dashed with even the smallest amount of the golden blood—ichor—of the gods.

And yet, nothing happened. It simply dissipated from his face like steam.

Eren hummed, and opened the doors fully, and his eyes remained transfixed on the amount of golden liquid splattered everywhere, draping all creatures of the underworld with its color. Harpies, sentinels, chimeras, sphinxes, vultures, the Nemeian lion, the brutal Titans—

They, along with other gods he knew very well, were all fighting alongside the person that Eren had been invading his consciousness. He closed his eyes and he willed everything away as someone—Oluo—shouted.

“Protect Eren at all costs even if it means your lives!”

All the while, void filled Eren’s heart—he wasn’t moved at all.

Just as he took a step forward to step over a fallen carcass of a soldiered god, Eren was suddenly pulled back, and he instinctively struggled against the tight and firm hold around his shoulders.

“Eren, Eren…!”

Eren closed his eyes, and let his ears be filled with the deepness of his captor’s voice. For a moment, Eren’s heart felt calm, and his struggle ceased as his lips parted, the tip of his tongue curling and touching his upper teeth—the beginnings of a name that he finally remembered.

His hand touched the familiar roughness of the warm talons, and his whole frame shivered as his heart felt nothing. Still, he remembered the name, the voice, and the touch that haunted his sleeping days.

With a deep intake of breath, Eren exposed his neck as he felt the hush of hot breath against his nape—and he whispered the name he had been crying on at the back of his numbed mind.

“ _Levi…_ ”

* * *

 


	11. Chapter 11

Levi screamed as he tore through a nymph’s chest, coating his whole body with blood. Baring his teeth at anyone who would dare try to enter the throne room, he had his sights dead set on the one who had led all the legions of soldiers and nymphs to his abode—

Erwin and Carla.

Levi was once told many eons ago, by the Fates, that he would someday cause a war so great, it would create a rift between the human realm and of the deity realm—a war that would cost many lives, those of both mortal and immortal. And Levi took all those warnings in stride, brushing it off as nothing but hogwash.

But he remembered those words well, and he had become even more cautious since the day they told him that.

Who knew that that war was all because of his love for a mortal hunter, whose heart was torn between living in the netherworld and the human world?

Levi hummed as he sliced through a soldier’s body, a wry smile making its way to his lips as he recalled the events for the past three weeks. He had been watching Eren consistently since then, not moving from his spot in front of the still sleeping male.

Eren’s body had remained weak, yet the flowers that have shielded him remained, coiling around his whole body like a protective barrier. The only thing that reassured Levi that Eren was alive was the fact that there was still life around him. The breath of nature still flourished in the coldness of his usually barren throne room, and Levi refused to move from where he was sitting on the ground, fearing that should he move even a single step away from Eren, the grass and the flowers around them would crumble and wither away. And Eren might wake up and see the disaster in Levi’s presence—and the hunter would be saddened.

Levi did not want that, so he stayed close to Eren’s side.

Hange had loyally stood by the death god, smiling and joking and reassuring Levi that all would be fine even if he moved away from the hunter. An occasional banter would be thrown between Ymir and Hange, and Levi, at rare times, would cut in between the two to mutter a quick and witty remark, and Hange would heartily slap the god’s back, despite her protesting hand. Ymir would stifle a laugh while Historia would giggle as she smoothed Eren’s hair. “You need to walk around and let yourself relax once in a while, now that we know Eren is alive, all would be fine,” Hange had once said to him, but Levi had merely shook his head and held Eren’s hand in between the gentleness of his taloned hands. He refused to move and look away from the hunter’s face, and Hange didn’t bother Levi again.

The death god had taken care of Eren for the entirety of the two weeks. Oftentimes, he would pat and smooth away the mortal’s locks with shaky, taloned hands. Levi knew that he shouldn’t touch Eren too much during his healing stage, but the soft breathing from the mortal would always crumble his resolve. There were also days that Historia would touch Eren, simply to check if he was all right. She would always smile, and Levi would go back to touching Eren’s hair, not saying a word to anyone unless directly asked about Eren. A sign of frazzled nerves and a strong desire for comfort that Levi had sought, Hange once noted to an observant Ymir. Ymir had only nodded, not trusting her mouth to speak, for once.

Fourteen days have been spent like that, with Levi cradling onto every shred of hope every time Eren would drift in and out of consciousness. The hunter had said nothing during his times of haziness, but there was, on one occasion, that Levi had almost broke down once more.

A lone tear had slipped from Eren’s closed eyes on one cold night, and Levi wiped it away, just as Eren parted his lips to say something—a name. A name that the king knew all too well.

And then there was none.

The week after that had began as Levi’s nightmare coming true. Starting with the news of the harpies falling swiftly one after another, right in front of the gates of Erebus, the god of death knew the Fates’ prophecy was about to bear fruit.

Then came the loud roaring reverberating throughout the whole underworld, shaking it to its very foundations, and it was during that time that Historia, the goddess of the hearth, gave an unconscious Eren a protection of sorts from the evils that were sure to come.

It was also during that time that Hange and Ymir sorted out peace talks to the roaring soldiers and it only ended in vain two days later.

“They want the boy back! They want the boy back and they want him now!” Ymir had shouted as soon as she entered the throne room, followed closely by an agitated Hange, who had looked quite close to ripping someone out of their flesh.

“They can’t have him. Not now!” Levi had yelled, who had remained kneeling in front of the unconscious Eren. Historia, who had noticed that the death god was becoming a bit jittery in his outcries of frustration, merely bit her lip and idly patted Eren’s head.

She had seen the eyeballs beneath his eyelids dart towards Levi’s direction—and nothing more.

“Eren is still recovering,” the gondolier had said, idly biting her thumbnail as she paced towards Levi, her eyes dulled with a crazed look. “And it’s not like we’re going to give him back to them anyway even if he’s well.” She had snapped her head sharply at Levi’s surprised face that day, and she knelt in front of him and promptly held his taloned hands, ignoring the swirls of smoke that have coiled and burned around her wrists.

“I know you’re not going to let him go this time,” she had hissed at him, those eyes of hers were wide and almost terrifying, her grip on the king’s hands were too painful, but Levi knew well that she was trying hard to make her point across without saying too much words.

He knew that she knew for herself that she was now slowly spiralling into the arms of lunacy—a familiar trait of Hange that surfaced only when she knew that the people she cherished were in real danger.

Levi’s jaw had tensed.

“ _How many are they?_ ”

And the war for Eren had then began.

Yelling for Erwin’s name as Levi tore through another soldier’s flesh, the death god growled as he threw the soldier’s head towards the god of war and charged at him.

“Erwin, you bastard!” His eyes swelled in fury. He had quickly shoved Eren back to his throne room as soon as a nymph tried to attack them both. Ripping its face off cleanly, he quickly shut the doors back, not before telling a blank-faced Eren to never open them unless everything was quiet and over.

Levi never saw Eren lamely nod, as the king was now blinded with rage.

Swift were the death god’s moves, his anger for the war god, who was hovering just above his trusted soldiers, very imminent. Levi bared his teeth, ready to tear down the god decked in gold, were it not for a seething Carla who blocked his way.

“Stop this foolishness, Little Death! You ought to know better than to declare war!”

Levi halted in mid-attack, his talons still poised and waiting to draw golden blood. Silver eyes seethed at the goddess, and he growled.

“I certainly did _not_ declare a damned war!” Levi yelled, pointing a clawed talon at Carla. “For all I know, you must have dragged that war-freak with you!” Erwin flinched at Levi’s words and at that taloned finger being pointed at him, he looked away, mumbling something to himself. “I never intended to start a fight!” The death god tried his best to keep himself as calm as he could in front of the goddess, for no matter what, she would always be Eren’s birthmother.

Carla growled, her expression now masking irritation. And for a moment, Levi could see where Eren inherited his features.

“You declared war the moment you took my son away from me. How bold and tactless of you. Hah! Letting all the ravens run loose in all of Greece and Italy? With seeds of pomegranate stuck to their bodies as they rounded the fields of Enna? Is that your idea of a joke?” Her brows furrowed even more, her face inching closer to Levi’s, a deadly glare set upon her usually kind eyes. “ _Don’t_ mock me, you pompous, wretched Death-Grabber!”

Levi’s face scrunched, his expression curious and lost as he huffed, ignoring the goddess’s terms of insult. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have never ventured outside of Erebus since Eren came here. I’m afraid I have lost track of time. Plus, I have never controlled animals. They would die by my presence alone before I could order them. Besides, that would be very low of me. Why order someone, or in this case, _animals_ , when I could do it myself?”

Carla’s teeth gnashed at the king’s haughtiness. His cold smirk did nothing to ease her anger—in fact, it only fuelled it. He didn’t even flinch when she gave him her darkest glare.

“I still can’t believe my son fell for someone as horrid as you. I don’t see what he saw in you. Why would he befriend you and choose you as his own? And to think that I would have given my blessing to you even if you are the complete opposite of my son. I would have given you all the blessing in the world because my son loves you so much! To the point that he’s willing to give up his freedom! And yet you have led him to his demise. You, who has hidden his self away from all of creation behind a badly-made mask—”

“You don’t know everything, so don’t judge.”

Carla stopped short at Levi’s words, keeping silent as he glared daggers at her. Her eyebrows rose, and she sneered to herself.

“Have I struck a nerve, Little Death?”

All the while, Erwin killed every being who had tried to harm the god of death. He dared not to intervene between their conversation.

“He is not to be touched,” he had said to his soldiers, and they begrudgingly obeyed his command.

* * *

Eren frowned as his hand touched the cold doors, ears intent on listening through the ruckus from the other side. As soon as he had been embraced tightly, he was turned around, and he had faced the death god. A chaste kiss to his brow was given, a loud sound of a screech was heard, and Eren was pushed and locked back to the throne room, right before he could even give Levi a proper greeting.

The hunter sighed, noting the withered leaves that gathered around his person. Feeling weak once more, he slumped to his knees, crouching in front of the wide doors like a pup waiting for his master’s return. A wave of questions crashed his oddly numb mind. Why was he still alive? Why was there fighting?

“Eren?”

The son of Carla craned his neck and looked at the source of the tiny voice. “Historia...?”

The goddess smiled at him. In her hands was a golden basin filled to the brim with clear water. Offering it to him, Eren shook his head and was about to speak, until he realized that his throat felt very parched. He bit his lip, and took the proffered water. Cupping the refreshing liquid in his hands, he messily drank to his heart’s content, aware of Historia’s kind eyes observing him with a smile. Gulping down the last drops of water his shaky hands could take, he wiped his mouth, and mumbled his thanks to the giggling goddess.

“Why are there fighting outside?” he asked as soon as he had his fill of refreshment. “Why is Erwin there? Why—why is my _mother_ there?”

Eren stepped closer to Historia, his eyes a tad wider. Fear, she could tell. And she stilled when he gripped her shoulders and asked her again.

“Why are they fighting?”

And Historia, seeing the flash of innocence over his face, wanted nothing more than to shield Eren from the cruelty of it all. And her heart shivered as she reached out to him in a comforting embrace, whispering to him, “It’s going to be all right, Eren. It’s going to be all right.”

At the back of her mind, however, she was not as calm as she appeared to be.

Her thoughts raced on how to stop all the fighting outside, she really wanted to, but she had no power over that.

That was Ymir’s forte, not Historia’s. And all Historia could do was to give comfort to the boy in turmoil.

The doors creaked open, and for the briefest of moments, Historia’s eyes sharpened into slits, her visage grew frightening at a second’s glance.

She wouldn’t dare let anyone harm Eren.

The sounds of fighting continued to rage on, and her hold on Eren tightened as someone tried to sneak in—

—and in came Petra, her face and cloak showing splatters of gold.

Historia breathed a sigh of relief.

“Eren needs to get out of here. The king’s orders,” she said as quickly as she slammed the doors shut. She briefly glanced at the sight of the golden liquid on her spear, and she wiped it on her cloak dismissively with a huff.

She walked over to Eren and knelt behind him, touching his back. And she enveloped him in an embrace as tight as Historia’s.

Eren didn’t know what to say, so he just stayed still, blinking.

“I’m sorry for all that I’ve done, Eren. I didn’t know,” she broke her embrace and looked at him with a hardened stare. “I didn’t know. And I’m sorry that you had to go through all of tha—”

Petra’s words were cut off as Eren hugged her. He patted her on the back, and for a moment, she could hear the smile from his voice as he spoke.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but whatever it is that is bothering you and it involves me—and if it bothers you that much that you are seeking my acceptance so much, then yes, you are forgiven. Although,” he broke the embrace and looked at her, and Petra smiled as Eren smiled as he held her hands, and kindness shone in his eyes as he spoke, “I really need to know what it is that I just forgave you for.”

Petra felt her breath stop short, and she blinked as she thought of the proper words to say. It seemed that the mortal remained oblivious as to what she did.

Innocence truly held him dear.

“Eren,” she started sweetly, willing the nervousness away from her cracking voice, “I have done you... great wrongs, and it cost you the king’s love, and also your life and—I don’t think I deserve your forgiveness but—”

Eren simply shook his head with a silent smile upon his face, and he caressed her cheek, and that smile bloomed as his eyes sparkled with life once more.

And Petra realized at that moment, that no one would be fully immune to the charms of the young hunter Eren.

“It’s all right now, it’s all right now,” Eren began, his voice soft and almost hoarse. And his next words brought tears to the sentinel’s eyes.

“Just always stay by his side to keep him safe. He could be lonely sometimes and needed someone to talk to. When I’m not here, please stay by his side.”

Petra nodded, and a broken laugh erupted from her lips as she wiped away her tears—from what emotion, she would never know. She smiled at the hunter, patted his shoulders stiffly, and nodded at him.

“At this moment, all of his subordinates are fighting alongside the king. And he told me to keep you away from the fight,” she reassured him, and at a glance, her eyes flitted over to Eren’s arms, and she held back a gasp as she looked at the smiling hunter. She forced a smile at Eren, and she stood up and offered him her hand, “Bring you to somewhere safe. Are you coming with me?”

* * *

Historia kept a sharp ear and eye on the fighting that roused the underworld to a true, living hell. She paced back and forth restlessly, her eyes looking at the heavy doors every now and then, and Ymir, who had been silently standing behind her since Petra and Eren have snuck away to a safe place, finally let out a sigh and tutted at the goddess.

“Stay still, Historia. You’re going to trample on the flowers—well, you are trampling on the flowers.”

Historia stopped pacing, and looked at the doors once more. Fumbling with her fingers and biting her lip every now and then, she glanced at Ymir, “Are they all safe, I wonder... The king, the gondolier, the Cerberus... Eren.”

Ymir said nothing for a long time, opting to merely blink at Historia’s question, and when the goddess started pacing again, Ymir spoke.

“They will be fine. As long as we cannot feel the underworld crumbling to its foundations again, then they are fine. The destruction of the netherworld is the destruction of the god of Death.”

Historia took a deep breath, and eyed the doors once more as she stepped closer towards the noise, “I wonder who is winning...” And just as she expected, the hurried sound of Ymir’s feet echoed all around her, and she was not surprised as her arm was taken hold and she was turned around.

“Now that, I will not allow. You stay here. I will go check, if you so wish to know of it that much.”

“No, no. It’s fine. I can manage. Don’t go out there.”

* * *

Petra led Eren towards the safest place she could think of—Tartarus.

It was the only place that Levi himself had restricted Eren to go to. And it was the perfect place to shield Eren from the eyes of war.

“This is the abomination that Levi told me not to go near to,” Eren mumbled to Petra as they neared the entrance to the deepest cave in the underworld. His teal eyes roamed the looming stalactites and stalagmites; his fingertips grew clammy to the touch as he blindly grasped at Petra’s cloak. He smiled, however, when his presence alone had turned the entrance of Tartarus into a living paradise. “Why lead me here?” he breathed out, amazed. He felt his heart pounding at the sights as they entered the changing scenery of the cave. Despite the breathtaking sights, however, they could hear the distant cries of pain from the inside.

Eren didn’t dare ask what the sounds were about.

“No one has ever set foot in here. No one aside from the Cerberus and the king himself. You are the first outsider to have ever been into this place.”

Eren gulped, unsure of how to respond as he plucked a rose from the cave’s walls, “Not even... Erwin of the War?”

Petra nodded and smiled, “Not even Erwin of the War.” And she patted his shoulder, and looked at the sharp, now moss-covered rocks above their heads. “You will stay here until everything has returned to its peace and order. You will wait here while I return to fighting. Once that’s over, I will return to you,” and she smiled reassuringly at Eren, winking at him playfully. “Besides, someone needs to stay by the king’s side as he fights. It is the Hunter’s wish.”

And Eren laughed and looked away, wiping at something at his beet red cheeks. The smile turned into a full-blown grin, and he and Petra shared a moment’s laughter and peace.

Once they have calmed down and returned sober, Petra gave Eren one last comforting squeeze on the shoulder, “Whatever you do, and whatever happens, steer clear away from the ravens. Steer clear away from them, and stay within the outer parts of this place. Don’t go deeper into this hell. Or the king will have my neck.”

And with that, Petra left Eren behind. He watched her jump from the cave and vanish into thin air, leaving behind a wisp of familiar black smoke.

Smoke that returned to Eren’s being once more.

The hunter watched as his fingers emitted the familiar smoke. He didn’t know when it had returned to him, but he was glad, nonetheless. He smiled as it played around his fingertips, its swirls coiling around his whole body, and he felt warm as an ebony tendril looped around his neck.

He laughed to himself, and kissed the black mist.

“I thought I have lost you forever.”

Eren stared at his arms, humming, and his gaze stopped short as he closely inspected his flesh—flesh that was now littered with little blisters that refused to heal.

They took the shape of a large pair of hands—hands that have long nails.

Eren gingerly touched his arms, and the smoke followed his movements. He hissed as new skin and flesh reformed before his eyes. He gulped, and his mouth went dry as he realized something dear.

* * *

“—so, let me get this straight. _You_ gave Eren back Levi’s protection. That... smoky thing.”

Historia nodded all too enthusiastically, her hands clasped as she let Ymir catch on. She watched as Ymir’s brows furrowed, her arms gesturing wildly at her, and Historia bit back a giggle.

“You gave it back... when Levi wasn’t looking. What,” Ymir scratched her head, her mouth formed in an almost permanent gape as she tried to connect everything that Historia just said to her. “How did you—”

“By letting him touch Eren all he wants,” Historia shrugged. “It was how he did it before,” she leaned closer to Ymir, and smiled as she looked at the heavy doors, “even though he himself didn’t know how that happened.” She turned her gaze back to the tanned woman, and she laughed at her expression. “The king himself didn’t know how he did it before. The Leader herself told me. But, this time, when I had revived Eren, I thought that that protection could be given back to him. And it did.” Historia’s smile faltered, and she looked away from Ymir, “Only...”

The goddess’s guardian tilted her head, her eyebrows raised as she urged Historia to go on. The blonde visibly gulped and scratched her arm, her expression almost regretful.

“The price to pay to have Eren by King Levi’s side is steep. Everything needs a balance.”

Ymir blinked, shaking her head, “I don’t understa—”

“The touch. The touch between them as lovers. It’s gone.”

* * *

Icy blue eyes stared intently at the seam before her. Her frown was etched on her pale face, and for a moment, an observant Bertolt could almost see the regret swirling in Annie’s eyes as the seam showed Eren hissing in pain.

His eyes saw her lips move, a mumbled phrase slipping in between a breathless string of apologies—all directed to Eren.

A stiff hand was placed on his and Annie’s shoulders, and a grave-looking Reiner bore holes in the scenes taking place in front of them.

“Everything is going as planned, everyone. Whatever you see in front of you from now on, don’t take it to heart. Don’t let pity reign inside you. Doing so would mean ruin to us all.”

Reiner said as much, but the silent Bertolt knew—

—sympathy had sprouted in Annie’s heart.

“It’s all for the best, Eren,” they heard her absentmindedly mumble to herself, and the two Fates said nothing to her, opting to merely offer her a comforting pat on the shoulder.

From a distance, the loud cawing of a raven could be heard, and it was only then that Annie blinked, and she beckoned the bird to her, and it perched on her hand, cawing and flapping its wings at the blonde.

“Just a little more,” she said to the raven, more so to herself—as Bertolt noted silently. “Just a little more—and we’ll all live in a world we all yearned for.”

Reiner eyed her, then at the changing seam, where the battle for Eren raged on.

He smirked when he saw a certain god yell out, and he huffed as that god spilt golden liquid from his arm.

Reiner’s eyes shone in delight, and Bertolt gulped as the blond spoke up.

“Time to turn the tables to our favor.”

Annie darted her eyes at the seam for a moment, and a small smile graced her lips.

“Turn everything to our side, Death’s Hunter.”

* * *

 


End file.
